Love, Life, Laugh

ITS arrival was uneven. Cyber cafés became early gateways for urban, middle-class youth, followed by desktop broadband and rudimentary mobile data. Access was slow and limited, yet transformative. Even then, the idea of a parallel digital existence—often loosely described as virtual reality—began to take shape, enabling experimentation with identity and intimacy beyond physical space.

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The decisive shift came in the early 2010s. Cheaper smartphones, falling data costs, and the spread of 3G turned internet access from novelty into routine. This was when the internet became socially consequential. It reorganised daily life. We no longer merely used it; increasingly, we lived on it.