Distorted Reality Parallax: Why Our Feeds Are Exhausting Us - (and Why a Day of Real Human Connection Might Just Save Christmas)

Jenni Pignatelli
23 hours ago
5 min read

By Jenni Pignatelli & Jyoti Choitram

Dec 2025

Have you ever paused mid-scroll because something just looked … a little too perfect or you can’t believe it’s happening?

Maybe it was the TikTok reel of a woman cutting a parrot cake in front of her horrified, screeching pet parrot?

Perhaps it is the video of a sick puppy finally recognising and reuniting with its military discharged owner.

Maybe it was the LinkedIn post that read like a TED Talk but was absolutely written by ChatGPT.

Or maybe it was that impossibly wholesome viral Christmas photo of matching pyjamas, perfect tree, pet dog, cat and goldfish all simultaneously looking directly at the camera — which (wait for it) was never real. AI made the pets. And the tree. And probably the pyjamas.

Welcome to Distorted Reality Parallax —the gap between real life and what your social media feed makes real life look like. Recall that disorienting feeling when the online world seems real enough to believe, but not real enough to trust?

It’s not just confusing. It’s exhausting.

What the research says (yes, real research)

We’re not imagining this fatigue. Social media scholars describe it as “mental exhaustion after experiencing various technological, information and communication overload.” [1]

Compulsive scrolling? A predictor of fatigue. Fear of missing out (FoMO)? Also a predictor. And that fatigue influences maladaptive behaviours which leads directly to anxiety and depression in large groups of social media users. [1]

At work, the research calls this technostress — a modern condition triggered when digital tools create information overload, constant connectivity, and blurred boundaries. The symptoms include anxiety, cognitive strain, reduced focus, and lower performance against a polarised background of resistance to, an/or over-identification with technology. [2]

In other words: humans were not built for multiple overlapping versions of reality.

These moments matter because they cognitively distort the truth — priming us to trust polished unreality while doubting our own lived experiences.

But are you surprised? According to data from Statista, a German based, leading provider of market and consumer data, the average daily social media usage of internet users worldwide amounted to 141 minutes per day. [3] A recent publication by the Telegraph UK reported that young adults are spending a record six hours a day online as TikTok and Snapchat grow in popularity among Gen Z. [4]

For those of us old enough to remember that the 3.5” floppy disk existed long before the ‘Save’ icon, the digital world already blurs reality. So what must it feel like for our children? Has distorted-reality parallax become their norm?

Furthermore, Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Co-Pilot etc can distort our sense of reality by exploiting the same shortcuts our brains use - heuristics and confirmation biases - to produce confident, familiar-feeling misinformation that people easily mistake as truth, especially when it is repeated online. As this false content circulates and feeds back into new models, it risks becoming part of our shared digital reality. [5]

That’s Distorted Reality Parallax in action. It happens when the digital world shifts reality just enough that you don’t notice — until you suddenly do.”

How Distorted Reality Parallax shows up at work

In workplaces proliferated with AI tools, digital assistants, robotics, filters, and algorithmic nudges, employees face multiple “realities” simultaneously:

Your real self: distracted, tired, sub-consciously sipping lukewarm coffee.
Your social feed-self: only ever presenting good angles, good lighting, good achievements. Multiple filters.
Your AI-self: writing immaculate reports, summarising documents, never misspelling the word, “misspell.”
Your workplace reality: full of imperfect humans navigating imperfect systems.

The research on technostress shows that when digital systems create techno-overload, techno-invasion, techno-complexity, and techno-uncertainty, workers experience anxiety, fatigue, scepticism and inefficacy. [2]

Combine this with social media fatigue — where compulsive use and FoMO lead to emotional exhaustion and withdrawal from digital tasks [1] — and we get exactly what you’ve been observing:

People are becoming cognitively tired from simply trying to keep their realities, REAL.

‘Tis the season to be distorted reality free

And now it’s nearly the end-of-year holiday season — peak period for digital distortion: impossibly perfect family photos; AI-enhanced festive scenes; curated gratitude posts; “My Year on Reflection” essays written by LLMs;

Fake snow.

Fake pets.

Fake everything.

It’s no wonder our brains are tired.

But here is a radical idea…(brace yourself)

The festive period is fast approaching. Imagine connecting not through screens, not through curated updates, but in actual human moments (yes, you read it correctly).

Fundamentally, we are human animals wired for social connection. Social baseline theory shows humans conserve energy and cope better with life’s demands when supported by others. [7] If you’re feeling lonely in a world of digital connection,

You are not alone (irony fully intended).

You are one in six (according to the World Health Organisation).

That’s over a billion of us.

Why? It’s because digital connection may be convenient but it lacks depth and the physiological benefits of real interaction.

At this point in time, we know that social media addiction affects us all – the doom scroll which was just supposed to be only a few minutes. Hours later wasted, we are left us with a deflated, empty feeling.

That emotional crash is our brain cycling between micro-dopamine hits and amygdala-triggering, negative content.

So How Do You Disconnect to Connect?

Realistically, none of us are locking our phones in a cupboard for a day (we know where to find both the key and the cupboard). They’re our modern Swiss Army knives: the camera to capture real moments, the map to get us from place to place, the wallet to buy a real coffee, the playlist, the lifeline.

Digital exile isn’t realistic. But creating small pockets of space is:

Plan intentional time for connection – a walk, coffee, dinner with friends, family or colleagues. [7,9,10]
Replace ‘scroll time’ with connection time – voice notes over text. [8]
Have a slow conversation: an unhurried, fully present dialogue with devices and distractions aside. [6]
Put your phone at a distance when you are being social. The “phone proximity effect” shows even a visible phone reduces empathy, trust, and connection. [11]

Go on — gift yourself the moment.

Final thought

Perhaps distorted-reality parallax isn’t the enemy — maybe our brains are simply recalibrating to a world where reality is layered, filtered, accelerated, and sometimes entirely fabricated.

But the cure is beautifully and comfortably simple:

Presence. Warmth. Connection.

Time that’s is 100% real.

No filters.

No bots.

No parallax.

Just human connection.

Happy holidays