Dr. Sue Varma

She's on the dinner table with her family for a rare special occasion.

But I feel like this phone to them is their lifeline.

It's their sense of relevance.

It's their sense of connection.

And it's like, what's happening in India?

What's happening to my relatives?

What's happening wherever?

And I think that as we get older, we start to become scared that we're no longer relevant.

that we're not in control, that bad things will happen to us.

I feel like in some cases it's the loneliness.

And then even when you're trying to draw them out of their shell and say, but I'm right here, you know, they're like, yeah, but you're here now, but you're not going to be here tomorrow.

My phone is always going to be here, my phone and the world.

It's a world that they've entered.

And I can also, I think, in some ways relate to that because I feel like I had dinner with a psychiatrist friend and she has no digital footprint, like none.

You can't find her on LinkedIn.

There's no website.

And she's like, I don't understand this world that you're a part of.

What is Instagram?

And trying to explain how compelling it is that you get sucked in.

You have a persona online that you have to maintain.