"My hand reaches for my pocket, but the phone isn't there." How political prisoners fall out of the digital world and then readjust to it.

"I was afraid: you'd get out and not even know what a phone looks like"

50-year-old Hanna Skryhan spent about 16 months in prison. In the penal colony, she recalls, women discussed, among other things, returning to normal life with a smartphone.

"There was such a fear: you'd get out and not even know what a phone looks like or what to do with it."

But in about a week, Hanna got used to the smartphone again: where to tap and swipe, how to navigate apps. However, it later turned out that it was easier to relearn the old movements than to return to digital life. She had to restore or create new accounts and reconfigure their security. Hanna specifically looked for instructions for messengers and social networks.

Soon after her release, she left Belarus, so she simultaneously had to master digital life in another country: banking and shopping apps, buying tickets, taxis, Polish state services.

"Anxiety constantly overwhelms me, almost panic, when you're afraid to press the wrong button."

Hanna only started to feel completely confident with all these services after three or four months.

Moreover, during her imprisonment, artificial intelligence had time to enter the daily lives of most people.

"'First, you start using it like Google, then as a translator. And only then do you realize that it can actually perform some of your routine tasks,' says Hanna."

"Some kind of intimate corner"

37-year-old Artur Khalimonchyk's digital pause was much longer. He was detained in August 2020 and released in February 2026.

On the second day after his release, Artur bought a smartphone – it turned out that even the tactile sensations of touching a phone had been forgotten.

Old accounts on Instagram and VK were lost: over the years of imprisonment, Artur had forgotten his logins and passwords. He had to create new ones. Telegram also felt almost unfamiliar.

"It took many unnecessary steps to perform a simple action — to find a certain channel. I couldn't grasp the logic."

But what surprised Artur more than the interfaces was the modern internet itself. After his release, he constantly heard from others: "I saw it on TikTok." He decided to try it. He only added his niece as a friend — and soon received about 30 notifications about her activities.

"I thought: 'No-no-no, now it will bury me with various informational junk.' And immediately deleted it."

Threads also currently raises questions for Artur:

"'What is this and what's it for, when Instagram already exists? It's still unclear why all these 'fishing rods' are being cast there. It's some kind of intimate corner,' the man laughs."

Artur calls his main impression of returning to the internet not the new apps, but the "very aggressive flow of information."

"I couldn't process it properly, and it seemed superfluous anyway."

He hasn't reached artificial intelligence yet.

The phone even appeared in dreams

32-year-old Vadzim Baranau spent a little over a year in prison — during which time the habit of using a smartphone didn't manage to disappear.

"At first, it was a bit unusual: the screen, the phone, tapping something. But all the skills were retained; I got used to it quite quickly."

It turned out to be much harder to get back into his accounts. Passwords were forgotten, the old phone and SIM card were gone: they remained with the security forces, and many services required SMS confirmation. For this reason, Vadzim couldn't restore Instagram for a long time.

During this time, according to Vadzim's feelings, the internet itself had also changed. In his feeds, he saw much more advertising and recommended content instead of posts from people he was subscribed to.

And yet, Vadzim spent much longer in prison getting used to living without a phone.

"It became so deeply ingrained in our lives: you have access to 99% of the world's information in your pocket, communication with everyone. But here, none of that exists."

In prison, there was a lot of time that couldn't be filled. And sometimes an automatic gesture would kick in:

"My hand reaches for my pocket to pull out my smartphone, but it's not there," the man recalls.

The phone even appeared in his dreams. Vadzim recalls dreams during his imprisonment: as if he had already been freed and could finally open social networks and Telegram: to find out who had written to him, what had happened during his incarceration, how people had reacted to his story.

"I see what look like messages, but everything is blurred. Nothing can be read because it's a dream."

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