@mc5punk 1 January 2026

Short story: Dismantled Eyes

The office smelled of cold coffee and disinfectant, a mixture trying to order the chaotic. Outside, the city pulsed with notifications: shop windows vibrating, hands swiping, faces lit by screens. Inside, the light was warm and still. Three bodies occupied the room: a calm-eyed psychologist, a mother clutching her coat close, and an adolescent who kept rubbing the fabric of his pants with his fingertips, seeking in that gesture the same security he found in the screen. Dr. Sosa: (pointing with his pen at a notebook) I’ve seen this pattern again and again. Excessive mobile and screen use is replacing real human experience. Many adolescents have lost basic interaction skills: speaking face to face, confronting conflicts, expressing emotions, tolerating discomfort, or building authentic bonds. Elisa (the mother): (voice breaking, hands clenched on her purse) But he… I see him laugh at videos, share memes with his friends in groups. Isn’t that the same as conversing? Dr. Sosa: No. By taking refuge in the digital —where everything is immediate, controlled, and risk-free— they avoid exposing themselves to real situations that require looking another person in the eye, accepting consequences, making mistakes, or overcoming difficulties. That lack of emotional and social practice is shaping more fragile, insecure, and dependent adolescents. Mateo (the adolescent): (pressing the edge of his chair; his phone vibrates in his pocket) So I’m… weak? For watching things? I… when I talk to someone in person, I freeze. I don’t know what to say. If I don’t have messages, I feel empty. Dr. Sosa: (without judgment, in a measured voice) It’s not a single personal fault; it’s a social effect, an adaptation to an environment that facilitates it. The design of many platforms rewards immediacy and control of image. But habits can change. What matters is recognizing what’s been lost along the way: the ability to tolerate the discomfort of a gaze, to accept silence, to allow a relationship to grow through stumbles. You don’t learn that through notifications. Elisa: (a mix of pleading and reproach) How do we help him? Do I force him to disconnect? Every time I try to talk to him, he looks at me like I’m another device he has to calibrate. Mateo: (his eyes tear up; he avoids his mother’s gaze) When people look at me directly I feel watched, my palms get sweaty. I prefer to control what I show on the screen. There I can edit myself, choose the angle, delete what I don’t like. Dr. Sosa: Controlling self-presentation is understandable. We all do it to some degree. But human interaction requires tolerating the loss of control: making mistakes, apologizing, not being reciprocated. Those are exercises in social resilience. If we don’t practice them, self-confidence becomes fragile and dependent on external approval. Elisa: (voice rising with guilt and contained anger) So is this all the phones’ fault? O ours, the parents’, for not setting limits? Dr. Sosa: (calm) It’s not a simplistic blaming. There are structures —platform designs that exploit immediate rewards, social pressures that normalize hyperconnectivity— and there are family decisions, too. The urgent thing now is creating safe opportunities for error and real encounter. It’s not about prohibiting but retraining: screen-free conversations, facing disagreements in person, learning to hold uncomfortable gazes without fleeing. Mateo: (a whisper that seems to break) What if I can’t? If I freeze in the middle of it all? I don’t want to look foolish in front of my friends or you. Dr. Sosa: Feeling foolish is part of learning. Think of it as a muscle: if you never use it, it atrophies. We can start with small, controlled exercises. Today, for example, talk for ten minutes without phones. Elisa, don’t interrupt. Mateo, try to look your mother in the eyes three times while you speak. If anxiety comes up, breathe and name it out loud. Elisa: (swallows; tries to believe him) Okay. We’ll try. A silence settles that is not peaceful but expectant. Mateo stares at his phone as if it were a root he knows he must pull out. The screen twinkles with a notification he decides not to open. With a gesture that seems to cost him, he places the device face down on the table, as if doing so were a small renunciation. Mateo: (low, trembling voice) Okay. Three looks. Elisa lifts her eyes. Her gaze is clumsy at first, as if she doesn’t know where to rest the eyes that until recently sought confirmation from a distance that is now directly across from her. Finally she looks. Their eyes meet, collide and examine one another, like assessing the quality of a bridge before crossing. Mateo: (waiting, then letting go with the weight of what’s been avoided) Mom… I feel stupid when I don’t know what to say. Elisa: (breathes, making the effort to be honest) Me too. I thought you didn’t care. I thought you preferred the screen to me. Mateo’s gaze drops; without the screen’s pretense, his voice cracks with a mix of shame and relief. Mateo: (almost a sigh) Sometimes I prefer the screen because it doesn’t demand from me. There I can choose what I show. But I love you. And I’m afraid you’ll leave. Elisa hesitates to reply; the sentence pierces through a shell of reproach she’d built to avoid being hurt. Her eyes fill and her voice comes out with a tenderness she had forgotten how to use. Elisa: (firmer, surprised by her own emotion) I’m not going to leave. The silence that follows is no longer a trap but a pause where two truths slowly settle. Dr. Sosa writes something in his notebook without interrupting, watching how the scene unfolds naturally when given space to be awkward and honest. Dr. Sosa: (gently) This is exactly what I wanted to happen. It’s not about demonizing technology, but about recovering what can atrophy if everything is replaced: the practice of being vulnerable. Vulnerability builds real strength. Not the kind measured by likes or views, but the kind that sustains a shared life. Mateo: (lifting his head with a hint of resolve) What if we start practicing this at home? No screens at the table, or before bed? Something small we can keep. Elisa: (decisive, accepting the weight of responsibility) Yes. We start today. Dr. Sosa: Good. Do it gradually and with intent. And when conflicts arise —because they will— face them in person. You’ll learn to tolerate discomfort, to repair, to forgive and to ask for forgiveness. That, more than any digital applause, will give you confidence. They stand to leave. Mateo picks up his phone with slower movements, like someone deciding that the belonging doesn’t have to be a permanent shield. He closes it and puts it in his jacket pocket without the urgency he usually shows; there is in his gesture a new awareness: the device will not eliminate the risk of speaking, but it can stop being the refuge that avoids risk. Outside, the city kept glowing, voracious in its offer of stimuli. Inside, however, a habit began to form: imperfect, human, trembling, but practiced. In the days that followed, conversations were short and awkward. There were uncomfortable silences, reproaches that always seem easier after a keyboard, sudden tears and missteps. Elisa and Mateo stumbled over the same argument about curfews, about music volume, about an offhand word that rekindled old fears. But those stumbles started to do something the screen never had: they taught consequences. Mateo learned to apologize with his voice, to hold a gaze after anger. Elisa learned to lower the intensity of her reproach and to name her fears without withdrawing. Daily practice brought small victories: a joke told without mediation, a dinner with unfiltered laughter, an argument closed with a hand on the arm that did not seek to control but to accompany. A month later, Mateo entered the office with a less rigid expression. He brought bad grades and an apology for being late, but also signs of initiative: he had begun to speak in class meetings, to raise his hand even though his chest raced. He didn’t always do well, but he did it. Elisa reported fewer dramatic sleepless nights; she now accepted that presence is not measured by the absence of conflict but by persistence in care. Dr. Sosa: (watching them with a faint smile) What you’ve done is build an emotional gym. Anxiety won’t disappear overnight, nor will all doubts, but you’ve resumed practice. Over time, that social muscle will grow more resilient. Technology didn’t disappear from their lives. There were moments when Mateo browsed videos before bed, and shared laughs in chats that kept friendships at a distance. The difference was that the screen stopped being the only room where meaningful things happened. Important things also began to happen in the kitchen, on the couch, in conversations that couldn’t be rewound. On a rainy afternoon, Mateo watched the rain against the glass, his phone resting silent. Elisa sat beside him and didn’t open her mouth to fill the silence; instead she offered him her gaze and, for the first time in a long while, they were able to hold it without a digital shield. It wasn’t a perfect scene: eyes wandered, there were awkward breaths, quickening pulses. But they looked at each other, and in that clumsy exchange a new truth emerged: shared fragility could become closeness if named and practiced. Outside, screens continued to blink, promising instant certainties. Inside, between the three of them, the promise was different: to learn to stay, to err, and to mend. It wasn’t a nostalgic return to idealized times, but a wager on human complexity, on patience with stumbles, on the courage to meet without filters. Little by little, their gazes were dismantled and reassembled—less perfect, but truer. Source of the images. Image created with Bing.