When little Tommy has the ability to pop in contact lenses to play in a virtual world and doesn’t come out of his room for a month, that generation of parents will express the same type of concern their parents did about spending time on Snapchat.

Real Life explores living with technology and publishes essays, arguments, narratives, and more. The magazine was launched by a team of editors and writers from The New Inquiry, Adult, and Hazlitt and is headed by social media theorist Nathan Jurgenson.

He died while I was off Facebook, and news had not reached me by any other channel. But there it was. Out of nowhere and without warning my browser was haunted by the very real presence of death. Momento mori.

Emily Eveland’s xoJane post about seeking revenge against her rapist went viral. Then came the social-media backlash questioning the authenticity of her narrative. This is her response.

From Tinder swipe to breakup in five short, sweet, sad vignettes: an online dating snapshot.

Upon turning 40, screenwriter-turned-novelist Sean Carlin writes about friendship, learning, and the value of slow, gradual growth.

“Despite my resentments over the secrets I had to keep and the care I was obligated to give her growing up — despite anything else at all — she is still my mother.” Jane Demuth writes about her complicated relationship with her mother.

“I was not only civil, I was gallant, / or as gallant as a girl should be / to the man of steel when he’s a molten mess / and weighing down one end of her couch, / muttering random slanders to the lamp.”
 
Whimsical verse recounts a late-night visit that reveals a superhero’s hidden side.