I write on the internet. I'm sorry.

The internet makes you angry and hateful — especially what I write on it

With regrets.
(Image credit: Ikon Images / Alamy Stock Photo)

Try to pinpoint the last time you took a purposeless walk through the late spring breeze, when there was no itch in your hand to reach for a mobile device, and you felt like the wind and sky around you had nothing to disclose to you other than the vast and mysteriously sympathy of existence itself. Was it 2007? Or as far back as 1997? Does just asking the question make you feel ill?

Do you lie awake in bed more often these days, unable to sleep, scrolling through Facebook or Twitter on your phone, trying to ignore signs of stress? Perhaps a faint taste of acid in your mouth? Do you have a gnawing fear that dark alliances are forming among your countrymen and conspiring against you, and everyone you like and (for good measure) everyone like you? Does it make you want to spend more money, or write yourself more reminders to do "self-care?" Maybe you suspect that if anyone else cares about your self it is only to notice that deep down you're just as much of a hateful loser as they are?

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Michael Brendan Dougherty

Michael Brendan Dougherty is senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is the founder and editor of The Slurve, a newsletter about baseball. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, ESPN Magazine, Slate and The American Conservative.