It was June before I realized how easy it was.

Trapped within the confines of my home, I was free from the pressure of academics, of competing, of talking to people.

Did it bother me when I realized the comfort with which thoughts and ideas are exchanged when they are exchanged through a medium other than the air between two human beings? As I tapped away at the screen of my phone, my laughter was reduced to emojis. My anger picked and chosen from a repertoire of incorrectly punctuated abbreviations. My emotions converted into a series of ones and zeros to be received and interpreted by a machine that knew just as much about human interaction as the chair I was sitting in, despite knowing everything.

Because why study when your notes sit next to you on the desk in your bedroom, placed inconspicuously outside the sliver of your home visible to your peers as they sit, stealing equally unassuming glances at their own?

Why reply Yes to that awkward text when the face on the other end can’t see yours go red, just as it did when your mother asked you if you prepared for the math quiz?

Why tell someone to their face when you can make the small blue bubble of pixels on your iPhone do it for you?