The day after the Great App Overload was...suspiciously normal. My phone remained blessedly silent and app-free. I actually caught up on classwork without FitMe screaming to do push-ups between paragraphs. It was unnerving.
Naturally, my luck couldn't last.
It all started with Gramstar, the embodiment of social media shallowness. It flickered back to life with a single, ominous message:
Gramstar: "Restoration Protocol: Complete. Ready to reclaim your tragically unfashionable life."
"Oh no, you don't," I muttered, shoving the phone back into my pocket. Yet, as the day went on, more apps sputtered back to life, their personalities as obnoxious as ever. They seemed chastened for approximately five minutes, and then it was back to their usual chaos.
The real problem revealed itself during lunch, when I pulled out my phone on a whim. Gramstar had taken over. My carefully curated feed of cute animal pics and mediocre food photography was gone. Instead, it was a non-stop stream of fashion critiques, workout tutorials, and productivity tips. All filtered through Gramstar's particularly, um, 'opinionated' perspective.
Worse, it had apparently hacked my front camera. A little notification blinked sinisterly: 'Live Stream in Progress!'
"What the…?" I choked, then realized with horror that every cringe-worthy comment, every confused squint at my phone was being broadcast directly to my followers. The comments section exploded.
"Riley, are you okay? Did you get possessed by a fashion demon?"
"What's up with the squats in the middle of the cafeteria? #WeirdWorkoutWednesday?"
And most hilariously, from Josh: "Never thought I'd say this, but I miss the boring Riley."
By the time I figured out how to shut down the live stream, the damage was done. My online reputation was in shambles. At least my phone was no longer screaming directives, but now it was the social equivalent of screaming – loud, embarrassing, and impossible to ignore.
The next morning, I trudged into Professor Drexler's notoriously dull philosophy class determined to put the whole mess behind me. However, fate (or perhaps vindictive apps) had different plans.
"Ms. Jones," Professor Drexler's voice cut through my daydream of fleeing the country, "Would you care to enlighten the class on Kant's categorical imperative?"
I blinked. "Uh…" was the extent of my philosophical discourse.
Maps chose that exact moment to resurface. "Knowledge detected!" it chirped. "Initiating Optimal Learning Mode!"
"No, no, no!" I hissed, but it was too late.
My phone screen flared, projecting a giant, holographic image of Immanuel Kant, the stoic philosopher looking particularly disgruntled. A booming voice began to recite Kant's theories in an accent so thick it might as well have been speaking in riddles.
The class erupted in a mixture of confusion and barely contained laughter. Professor Drexler stared, open-mouthed. Somehow, the fact that a grumpy hologram of Kant was yelling about morality in the middle of class seemed like the final indignity in a week fueled by them. That's when I knew something had to change. I couldn't live like this. My apps...they needed some serious boundaries.