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Opinion: Is It Just Me, or Is the World Finally Starting to Feel Normal Again?

If you spend enough time on your phone, the world starts to feel like a pretty bleak place.

It is loud, angry, and constant, a stream of outrage and division that never really lets up, no matter how far you scroll or how many times you refresh the homepage.

That is life in the post-social, social media age, where people are technically connected but increasingly detached from anything that feels genuine.

Many of us scroll until our eyes are strained as we consume content that is carefully curated by algorithms that profit off keeping us agitated, distracted, and buying crap from China.

And if it feels like the negativity has been turned up in recent years, that is because it has. Coming out of the pandemic, it felt like a multitude of tech and social factors had killed off what made living near other people fun.

That era was led politically by Joe Biden, who — along with the media and Big Tech — did everything possible to demonize traditional behavior and social mores, and to isolate and divide people.

The legacy of those years still lingers online through a constant sense that everything is on the verge of collapse, or that the best is way behind us.

Meanwhile, out in the real world, something else appears to be happening, especially to me over this past weekend.

Now, this is anecdotal, and I live in the South, so it is possible this is regional. But what I saw was hard to ignore.

I walked into a mall on Saturday and was immediately struck by how full it was. Not in a cramped or uncomfortable way, either, but in a way that felt natural and nostalgic.

There were people everywhere, moving through stores, talking in groups, carrying shopping bags, and just existing in a space together without needing a mediator.

The energy was there, the kind young people now call “vibes,” and it felt like something that had quietly been missing.

Sunday, I picked up one of my kids from a sleepover, where she had spent time with other kids, face-to-face. Later in the day, I took my family to a skating rink.

That place was packed. Kids were everywhere, running into friends, laughing, circling the floor, and crashing. It felt like stepping into a different decade entirely.

What stood out most was how few people were on their phones. In fact, I may have been the only person on a phone.

My regular bowling alley was the same story.

It is usually busy on Sunday nights, but this time I ended up waiting nearly an hour for a lane, and it did not even feel frustrating. There was a time not long ago when I wondered how bowling alleys stayed in business.

People were out in big numbers, and it was not just older crowds. A large portion of the people there were in their 20s and teens, which made it even more striking.

These are the people who have grown up entirely in the age of smartphones, and yet they were choosing to be there.

My weekend had actually started at a movie theater, where I saw the non-woke adventure film “Project Hail Mary” again.

The film has made more than $300 million in two weekends because, in my opinion, it is not injected with left-wing politics and is a touching story that people want to see.

In any event, over the course of a few days this weekend, I started to see the world a little differently than I have grown accustomed to.

Everywhere I went, people were out. They were walking, talking, laughing, eating, and participating in a world that, if you experience life mostly through the internet, you might assume no longer exists.

The insane, left-wing “No Kings” protestors were out across the country, but I never saw any of them.

The places I went were full of people who had decided, whether consciously or not, to step away from the noise and to do something fun with other people. It was beautiful.

Maybe it never truly stopped being like this, and I just noticed it now, but I don’t think so.

I am kind of wired to observe places and people, and my weekend felt different in a way that is still hard to ignore.

If I didn’t know any better, I would almost say the world is starting to find its way back to something that feels like normal.

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