I went to a small town girls school full of working class parents who were good parents and always put their children first. All the mothers were stay at home mothers and the fathers were the bread winners. Our wants and expectations were simple and ambition wasn't mentioned. We were all expected to leave school at 15 years old and get our first full time jobs to support ourselves. Jobs were given to school leavers before mothers. Not one person in our school was a bully apart from the nuns who had multiple psychiatric problems. All the church collection money used to be sent to Christchurch as we were a sub section of their parish and they used to send all the nuns over to our working class school when they were having mental health breakdowns and problems. Lots of the nuns didn't want to be in my small town and aspired to some posh school in the city. Some of the nuns didn't even want to be teachers and used to just come into class and say, read this, and go out of the class for the whole class. I was told I couldn't sit school certificate but my father put his foot down and said I was sitting school certificate. Our parents loved us and we knew we were loved because we always felt safe at home, and warm, and had plenty to eat. Our parents always put us first and we were disciplined and told if we wanted something we'd have to get a part time job as kids. No one had a drug addictions and life was simple without phones and open borders and all the problems that go with it.
2
City dwellers- Go outside and find a park or a seaside or a scrap of wild country and walk around and look at your surroundings and the birds and feel the breeze and the sun and shadow and smell the clean air. You will calm down and relax and remember your roots as a human. You will recover the child you used to be and have more energy and be refreshed. The clamour of technology will recede under the spell of spring.
2
I wish this article had been about what the title promised, a discussion of webpages that allow continuous downward scrolling, with seemingly infinite content, and an assessment of the purpose or social implications. This has very little that we don't understand...Even I, who hate my reliance on the phone, will use it to avoid looking awkward by not.
2
"The future is as I have foreseen. Everything is going according to plan"-Emperor Palpatine (Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith)
1
I know a guy who took the phones away from his two kids (10 and 12 years old) sitting in the back seat of his car- they weren't talking to each other, they were texting each other.
2
I swipe, therefore I am.
3
I've noticed a common trait among those people whose noses angle towards tiny screens.
It's a certain smugness, an air of self-importance that screams to everyone around:
"Look at me, I am sooo cool doing my uber-important stuff on this device. I cannot be bothered, and so do not deign to acknowledge your existence at this time. You wish you were me. I shall now look impressive as I poke at this screen."
I find it all to be pretty hilarious.
2
Not sure what the big deal is with people looking at their phones. Our phones are now our maps, Walkman, books, mail, newspaper, bank account, scrap book, camera, note pad, and many other things. Of course people are looking at their phones a lot. Did people really talk to each other that much more 20 years ago than today? Everyone was just doing the same tasks with an older technology.
4
@Mike It is a big deal. People who spend inordinate amounts of time living their lives through a small screen, miss out on what is real around them. They don't make eye contact, they don't communicate, they don't even see you, they are totally self-absorbed.
For me, seeing someone walking, especially on a busy sidewalk, staring at his/her screen, not paying attention, while I hold up my responsibility as a pedestrian to look where I am going, is bothersome. I now make zombies like that go around me, rather than the other way around. Don't even get me started about the zombies going up or down stairs on the subway. All it takes is a push or tripping to cause a terrible accident. Yes, I use mine, but for the vast majority of my time, I operate in the real and physical realm.
I look at people, and the environment around me. I see details of that environment, the sky, the built environment, and I use my senses to help understand the world around me. I converse with people. There is also the safety aspect as well: I am aware.
I always find it funny, when on vacation, seeing people looking and taking videos of whatever scene, rather than experiencing the event with their own eyes.
The fear that I have with this self-absorbed nature is that we are becoming less engaging with others as human beings, and living in isolated bubbles through technology.
And to your question about 20 years ago, yes, people actually DID talk more back in the day. I can say so, I am 66.
6
How can there be any future for our planet if so many people cannot be bothered to look up and see what is around them?
3
The decline of civilization marches on..... right on schedule.
4
I've not been able to put words to his phenomenon so I do it with pictures as well, I'm just starting to share them now: https://www.instagram.com/screenseverywherescreens, Instagram #ScreensEverywhereScreens a chronology of engrossment.
4
"The unbreakable lure of the screen." I must be stupid. I thought it was about film addicts/movie nerds. As for my phone, there is no unbreakable lure for me--unless I'm in a waiting room and forgot a book. I read news stories such as this. No social media. Shiver.
3
I understand these newspaper stories -- like windstorms off the Kansas prairie -- but they are already so old and cliche-ridden. And the editors demand such stories. What's a reporter to do?
All of these questions, which are really assertions now, were abundantly apparent a decade or more ago to anyone willing to notice. Clearly, a distinct minority.
Stop it; give us some news instead.
2
Here's Robin Williams' take on texting and new technologies, from 2009 show "Weapons of Self Destruction". Great piece and spot on!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67uAX_dJ33g
1
Did not like a single one of these photos, shallow and boring.
Most of my screen time involves reading the NYT!
3
Yes. The Blackberry was called a Crackberrry for a reason. I'm a phone addict yeah. I try to justify it by reading NYT and Washington Post, but I can devour those in a few hours.
1
“...We are much more likely to be looking at our digital slabs than at our fellow human beings...
Discussed and debated this at length with my AI bot...
After systemically scanning and adroitly analyzing NYT pictures of NYC streetscapes of the past 100 years, it discerned what – as always, in retrospect – should have been obvious...
People, it intoned, want or need to have something the size of a pocket bible or rosary in their hands – something they can fiddle with from page to page or bead to bead, excused from looking up at or interacting with anyone too adjacent...
For a time, great secular social progress was made when packs of cigarettes were substituted for St James or St Dominic...
A stranger could ask for a cigarette or a light – no one would ever ask for a bead from a rosary...
One puff of Steve Jobs’ genius was to realize that people would like the affectation of a sophisticated case for their smokes, instead of a grubby little nondescript – pack...
Another was to put a phone and a navigation system into his snappy little box – so they wouldn’t compete for pocket room...
Looking ahead – forget 5G...
If Huawei builds vaping into its next-generation model, war would be over before it’d begun...
1
I have a flip phone for one reason, I want to connect with people, talk to them, be with them. I jus wonder about the health of people’s necks and spines from age 12 and on staring at little screens.
3
You had to ask this question? Pity the babies of these people.
The thing about all this I find truly sad is...when you think back to the art of Norman Rockwell...his Idealistic portrayal of American Life was so imaginative and captivating. Although it was an Idealistic Dream World...it offered a snapshot of life in America that some experienced as a lifestyle,some experienced occasionally, and for some it was the embodiment of an American life they could dream of living someday! When you think of his portrait of Thanksgiving ...or The Four Freedoms..and The Problem We All Live With and compare the Truth and Idealism behind them with Life In America Today...how can you not be saddened at what we've become as a Nation? Now at Thanksgiving we have to agree to stay off our phones to have some human interaction. On dates we have to agree to shut off devices to stop distractions and interruptions.The last few years are proof we are still struggling with Thanksgiving, the Four Freedoms, and The Problem We All Live With...and the speed of the Internet is making things worse! Heaven help us if we lose our Internet Connections or the System goes down. We'd have to be forced to become..human again!! Face it America....we're...Addicted !! Don't Believe Me....try taking someone's phone or internet connection away for a few hours ..or a day or two. The resulting irritation and anxiety are a sure sign of ...Withdrawal Symptoms !! We and the World are Nations of Internet Addicts!
1
I am sorry, but before smart phones, there were long hours in front of the TV... the good old days I guess :)
2
So let’s see if I get it right. All the commenters, almost all negative about screens and digital devices, are writing their negative comments using a quill, or maybe on a wax tablet with a stylus, after having someone read this article aloud to them, while sitting in a circle holding hands.
3
Last month I took a night tram ride in Budapest on the celebrated #2 - described as 'Europe's most scenic tram ride' ALL of the young people on board had their eyes glued to their screens instead of the wonderful sights we were passing.
This is our future - these horrid little time-bandits screaming for our attention 24 hours a day. A dystopian future.
2
Leave people alone. It's a free country and I guess people forget what enriching activities were going on before the digital revolution like watching TV, reading magazines and newspapers and listening to the radio....all because daily life was boring and so mundane that people turned to something more interesting.
Just leave people alone.
Life is not a fun adventure for most people. It consists of working a job trying to keep their head above water and going home dead tired and bored to death.
Give it a rest. Move on.
2
Parents are playing with their rectangles instead of interacting with their kids. No wonder the kids are depressed.
3
Moby and the Void Pacific Choir said it best in 2016 with the video, "Are You Lost in the World Like Me?"
1
Honestly, my iPhone and my dog are about all about the humanity I can stand,most people nowadays are just plan annoying.
2
I do not want to walk around looking at a small screen. so when I travel to NYC I see people----watching them is fascinating. I also see people who are down and out, which is sobering. I developed a strategy----I give cash to women who look like they are exhausted, resting in some corner with their few belongings.I press a $10 bill into their hand and walk quickly away. I do not give to those who ask for help. I decide who I will give to. Looking at a phone creates a wonderful excuse----you can't be concerned about people you never see.
2
Great story, yes, but the photographs are won-der-ful, a complementary body-of-work, with drama, righteous lighting - well done!
Let's give credit where it is due, too: the collaborators/team:
Photographs by Christopher Lee / Text by Aparna Nancherla
Mr. Lee is a photographer. Ms. Nancherla is a comedian.
3
The noir overtone of the photos looms perfectly.
2
I was one of those people on an endless FB scroll watching garbage content and political videos. I didn’t even like what I was watching. I didn’t even want to watch. The pull was so strong. I finally mustered the power to delete my FB account. I’m free of those chains.
1
Darwin never considered De-evolution as a possibility. If only knew what the future held for humans. Devo however did and wrote many great songs back in the late 1970's. A Noble Science prize for them? I hereby nominate them for the Noble prize in biology. I think they deserve it. At least the "Fortune Tellers of the 20th/21st Century" award. Edgar Cayce would be jealous.
2
Gosh I have a phone in hand right now!
1
These pictures, text, and comments are important reflections about a behavior that is without a doubt a global phenomenon; for the better or the worse, at this time, we cannot know.
In 2007, I began teaching my course "The Art of Connecting" at the School of Visual Arts, in New York. Its purpose is to teach students how to improve mutual understanding between people face-to-face. The aim is to improve human relations.
Shortly after I began teaching the course, I'm at a social gathering, someone asks me about it. I tell them.
They say, "I'm trying to connect more as well!"
Naturally interested, I ask, "How so?"
"I'm texting more." They say.
Here we are, 12 years later.
Thank you for the article.
2
I say fear not. This Infinity Scroll (a nice term by the way), is simply a tool. A modern contrivance that aides most in the daily pursuit of their lives.
Are we obsessed with it? Absolutely. For now we are in complete thrall to it, just as we were with the telephone, the car, the elevator, the printing press, you name it. When it was new we obsessed over it.
It's a repeating pattern to our lives, as is the gloom and doom comments of any era's cognoscenti. The ever present sentinels who are always vigilant to the things negatives. They waste little time in harping, carping and educating everyone to the dangers.
But I say relax. Yes we are in thrall...for now. But we will relegate it to its functional place in our lives. We need only the time to properly slot it into the fabric over everything else.
John~
American Net'Zen
2
Quite the optimist. Notice how you say: ‘slot it in OVER the fabric’ ? Rather then it being a thread among life’s weave.
I have a love hate relationship with my iPhone. I love the convenience of being connected to my family and friends. I hate the fact that I have become dependent on that convenience. I have resisted the urge to read news or play games on my phone for fear of becoming like so many people who seem addicted to staring at that little screen. I’ve been at a beautiful beach in the summer and seen people on their phones as they waded in the waves or sat on blankets and wondered if what could be more appealing than enjoying a lovely summers day.
2
Such beautiful images.
1
@Alex Abatie If they are beautiful are they capturing the problem stated by the author, or does the compelling quality undermine the argument?
Silicon Valley corporations in search of never-ending profit for their investors sold us a bill of goods that all new tech constituted progress and that disruption was the wave of the future. The former is getting us a generation of gadget junkies, an infrastructure, government, and, military dependent on Chinese chips with their likely embedded code controlled from Beijing, and informational "democracy" where all opinions are equally valid. The latter gets us the Disrupter-In-Chief as President.
As long as there are people willing to buy snake oil, there will be people willing to sell it.
1
We will become part phone in a dozen decades.
1
As a fast walker I would try and remain alert to avoid collisions on the street, being an exercise in itself. Now, I have to be hypervigilant because I am trying to compute the probable trajectories of 5 or 6 zombies at a time - all the time. You also cannot make any assumptions at a traffic crossing, because everyone in their car is hypnotized by their screen; green light, red light, don't mean nuthin'.
In the H.G Wells short story "The Country of the Blind", he turns the bromide that "In the country of the blind, the one eyed man is king" on its head. A sighted man does stumble into the country of the blind, in their forgotten Andean valley, and they seem to exceed him in all their powers. A prisoner, he even consents to undergo an operation to remove those two troublesome protuberances in his head so he can join them, but then repents at the last minute to make his escape and is rewarded with a spectacular mountaintop sunrise. I try to keep this tale in mind lest I become one of the shuffling troglodytes I encounter every day.
2
I bump into them often. It is not our obligation to change path if someone else is moving in an oblivious, quasi-negligent manner. I give them the cold stare when they make the abrupt eye contact after the mild physical contact. No words needed, it registers upon them quickly they are zombies.
1
Thanks to my mother my phone is always off unless I want to use it. I rarely take it with me when I leave the house.
When I was a kid, mom got us a private phone line. Cool, I thought. But mom sat me down and told me that if I was not willing to go to the end of the street and shout at the top of my lungs for all the world to hear what I was about to say on the phone, don't. She told me the government listens to all phone calls and that there is no such thing as a private phone line.
Now, if your mom told you the government listens to phone calls you might think she was nuts. But my mother was a telephone operator in the Marine Corps and handled a top secret line between Quantico and the Pentagon so I believed her when she said the government is listening.
But my reason for turning off my phone today isn't because Trump may listen in but because I am tired of corporations tracking every move I make and selling that data on the open market. And I got tired of the same corporations spamming my phone every day with their calls.
I hate trying to text on a phone with thumbs when I could type 70 wpm on a pc so people don't even try texting me on phone. I just ring their phone and ask them what they want:)
I don't Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or even send a yearly letter at Christmas. And I don't have a cat so no need to upload any cute videos.
My addiction is the NYT comments section:))
3
Look at photos of commuters from 100 years ago and guess what you’ll see....EVERY ONE OF THEM buried in a newspaper. Ignoring each other. Each in their own world. Think of how even our popular culture depicts the domestic bliss of half a century ago: kids running amok, mom and dad with their noses buried in a newspaper, oblivious to the din.
Is this really any different to looking at a phone screen? Of course not.
I agree that it is unbearable when someone is on their phone when you’re meant to be socialising, but this is rare (at least in my circles).
7
I was waiting to get a manicure the other day and in the waiting area with me were 3 children, between the ages of 5 and 10, waiting while their mother was getting her nails done.
The salon employees kept oohing and aahing at how well behaved the children were. In fact, not a sound came out of them during the 20 minutes I sat there.
All three of them had headphones on, and were staring into a tablet. Not a single interaction between them. Not a look in anybody's direction.
It made me incredibly sad for them.
Mother was so proud. It made me incredibly sad for her too.
8
I'm 73, and love my cell phone; it's a great tool. One under appreciated detail is the on/off switch. Use it, or be used.
I grew up without tv until my teens. Read books and went out to play. Many of today's young adults probably had a tv or computer in their face from infancy. Early on, their experience of the world was moving pictures in a rectangular frame. Pictures created and 'sent' to them. Yes, I exaggerate and generalize, but do so to make a point.
Often at the office as I walk up to the elevator and look at people they instantly look at their phones; sometimes I say aloud: "Reading that same text again?" or "Has the weather changed in the last 2 minutes?" Some laugh, some ignore, some are irritated. Sorry; act like a zombie, be treated like one.
The tragedy of constant use of phones is how they rob you of personal 'free time'. So does the radio and tv always in the background in the mall or at home. We are afraid of silence. But we need those empty snatches of time; especially when we're young, in order to process. Information we've been digesting falls into a pattern and we have a thought, or a dream or both.
When Aristotle shouted 'Eureeka' was he busily scratching away at a slab of marble? Perhaps, or not. Maybe he was happily walking home to eat some souvlaki, looking at the sky seeing a face in wind driven clouds and it all just hit him.
10
Young people these days! I believe you mean Archimedes. ;-)
1
Everyone is glued to their phones now. It's sad. Just about everyone I know has told me they struggle with anxiety, depression and loneliness. Is it any wonder why? We don't talk to each other anymore.
I make a point of NOT being on my device when in public (restaurants, subways, etc.) UNLESS I'm using the directions app or I'm texting the person that I'm en route to meeting that I've arrived/going to be late, etc. Other than that, the device goes into my backpack and stays there.
I let my eyes wander in public. I notice that very few people ever look happy. They are living a life inside their phones that, in turn, does little to nothing to offer them happiness and support for a life outside of their phones.
Scroll. Scroll. Scroll.
I once talked to a sheriff's deputy. I remember the conversation, because it was pretty chilling. He said that in our era of at least one mass shooting per day happening somewhere in the country (not all shootings get reported), the single best thing that people can do to stay safe is to get off their phones in public. Instead, look around you. Make eye contact with the people coming your way, and smile at them. Look for signs of danger. If anything is amiss, you can leave fast.
I was in a cafe recently, and every single person in the cafe was hunched over their phones, scrolling and tapping. It occurred to me that if a mass shooter came in the front door, no one would notice until it was too late. Not even those who sat facing the door.
7
I would like to propose an idea:
The reason we get attracted to phone screens (or any other screens for that matter) is because we are looking for flowers. You see, our brains are hardwired to get attracted to bright colors in nature. That is how our survival instincts found food. Bright colors in nature bring internal joy and happiness. They tell us that everything will be okay. Lack of bright colors tell us of impending droughts and famine. Flowers tell us of coming season of plenty. That's really what we are looking for when we are staring at a mindless screen.
Consider this: Even a two year old baby can't look away from a screen.
Have you every tried making your phone monotone (grey's only). It becomes repulsive. That's the real screen without the colors. It's just repulsive artificial light.
6
I often look up from my phone while riding the subway and note that almost every passenger is on their device. We are together alone. It is eerie.
6
Recently, I was tasked with photographing baseball fans as they arrived at a major league game. In order to incentivize the subjects into accepting to be photographed, I'd keep the DSLR camera up to my eye while peering at the incoming crowd through the cameras optical finder. As soon as the appropriate composition appeared, I'd squeeze the shutter release one time, lower the camera and check the digital preview.
If the image was "good", I'd place a numbered receipt in the hand of the subject(s). This brief interaction unfolded countless times without me making eye contact with the subject. My attention was on the optical finder and the digital preview only. Why you ask wasn't I more "engaged" with the subjects. I am paid .25cents per "saleable" image taken during the course of the game, a calculus that doesn't allow for even the slightest pleasantry.
It's a brutalizing experience for the photographer and the subject, a race to the bottom for the producer and the consumer of so much digital content.
3
The screens have warped our idea of aesthetics, as if looking at an image on a screen, often an enhanced representation of reality, is more worth our attention and a more satisfactory experience than viewing the material object or person before us.
I'm aware of this when walking down the street or inhabiting a populated place. People look less at each other in search of a beautiful face; heads don't turn as much unless to behold a particularly fit or amazing body, which gives more of a thrill than a pretty face. Beauty exists and is more efficiently accessible through images.
For an idea of where this came from and where it's going, read Guy Debor.
4
We should have been able to predict this based on our love of television...the 1st screen. The non-inclusion of tv in all the self-loathing about phone screen time for humanity, esp kids, makes me question the validity of the fear. I was raised by a televisiin screen in the 70s & 80s in Ohio. I still watch and use a phone, but I also read and am a professional artist. Screens don't kill humanity...maybe most people are just not that interesting at the moment.
4
My husband and I have been lucky enough to go to the Maldives- a feast for the senses if ever there was one- for diving, for the past 20 years. This year we were unable to go to our usual small, minimally-connected atoll and spent 10 days on a larger one with connections seemingly everywhere. We saw entire families sitting on the beach and in the open-air restaurant, day and night, ignoring the exquisite sight of turquoise water, swaying palm trees, spectacular sunsets, the visible Milky Way, and more importantly each other - as they bent over their phones. What a waste of a “soul-nourishing” environment in favor of a screen.
10
Reading faces is the route to empathy. If you show expressive faces to some one their MRI lights up in the same area as if the viewer had the same emotion. The science is there. Now babies reared on trite stories and screens, so their mothers and father scan spend their time with trite stories on screens, rather than making faces at the baby, are growing up without being able to read faces. Incapable of empathy. A generation drowning in overpopulation, climate change, surveillance capitalism (to quote shoshana zuboff) and without empathy. Nightmare.
11
This new human experience from the screen will have serious consequence to our brain function, especially for children. Everything will be viewed 2-dimensionally, there is the lose of our ability to read people's facial expressions and to grasp the emotions of the person in front of us. So much screen time limits us to living within a small space in life, "good/bad; like/dislike". Our tactile, multi dimensional sense will be dulled, everything is viewed through the 2-dimensional interpretation on the screen. Communications becomes short by texting, good for quick communication but bad for developing context in writing. All matters needing interpretations will be short, simplifying our experience of what makes us an intelligent species. We no longer look and appeciate nature while standing under a tree, in front of the ocean, the magestic mountains, the sparkling snow that falls from the sky crossed over by a colorful rainbow......
4
Screens are the cigarettes of the 21st Century. Market to kids and get them addicted for life. If there are adverse effects, their suppliers deny them or attribute them to something else. Any consequences will be for someone else to deal with decades from now.
Joe Camel has morphed into Joe Pixel.
14
With all the articles coming out about private schools in Silicon Valley promoting screen-free education, I can't help but feel that we will one day seen a similar 'outing' of the tech industry that big tobacco saw in the 80s and 90s.
If the folks designing and building these devices don't want them in the hands of their children, that should tell you all you need to know about the long term effects of chronic use.
13
According to a number of articles over the past few years, nomophobia ("the irrational fear of being without your mobile phone or being unable to use your phone for some reason") is the fastest-growing "phobia" in the world. And the need to check one's phone is both a symptom of it and a gateway to it. Unlike computers - even laptops - which need to be set up to be looked at, the smart phone is always there, a few seconds away. The temptation - for a growing number of people, of all ages and demographics - is becoming impossible to fight. And yes, in many cases it is all but replacing REAL, in-person human interaction, or at least becoming an increasingly common substitute; why bother going through all the hassle of making plans, traveling, and actually being with someone in person when they can be reached, even seen (via FaceTime), on one's phone? I have been watching this happen for years, and it saddens me greatly. Indeed, there is a young woman (mid-20s) I work with who is literally addicted to her phone: it almost never leaves her hand, and she texts and talks on it even at the risk of being reprimanded, or even potentially suspended or fired. That is how deep her own nomophobia is. And as noted, this type of behavior is growing. What is the answer? Apparently, it may have to be treated as a genuine serious addiction - though I am not sure what "treatment" would look like. In the meantime, technology (phones/computers) continues to impose itself between us.
7
This is why I don't own a cellphone, even though I can afford one. Just something else to loose, as well.
People who don't own cellphones can observe screen addiction on the streets and it's dangerous as people and kids can walk out in front of cars and trains, and one of the main causes of car accidents are people using their cellphones even though it's banned. It's called addiction, folks.
Cellphones should also be banned from dinner tables and social outings, as social outings mean you should be talking to real people and not texting or on the cellphone. It's not polite and is disrespectful to other humans.
Technology is the age of disengaging from real people and your surroundings and living in the unreal world of technology.
Lots of parents who take their kids to the park don't interact with their kids at the park and the parents or caregivers are engrossed with texting. Lots of kids are cellphone orphans because the kids get no interaction with parents who are addicted to cellphones and technology.
Cellphones should also be banned during school hours. Cellphones hadn't been invented when I went to school and we never had bullying. Lots of schools have bullying and then some pupil puts the video on social media. There is a dark side to technology. Instead of the technology serving the owner of the cellphone, the technology is raking in lots of dollars for the shareholders of the sites; not the slaves who put these videos online for free.
5
@CK
Well I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s. and there was bullying aplenty back then. I had both girl and boy bullies; the girls hiurt more because I was a girl, and my friends had turned into my tormentors.
Something weird happens to some girls at ages 12-14. By the time I graduated from high school, the bullying had stopped, and I had warm, close friends. But those junior high years were just awful.
But I do count myself glad that the bullying was confined to the classrooms, and I didn't have to endure it after school at home. That said, nobody tried to do much about it, not teachers or parents, and certainly not the greater society. You were basically supposed to gut it out, or you could try to retaliate, which invariably made me feel worse.
i work from home now for a gargantuan technology company in Silicon Valley. But as a full-time employee, I am tethered to my monitor unless I request a break for lunch or an errand. So I am not even as "liberated" as those who can walk around with their noses in their phones and grab a view of nature or take a drive without giant monitors staring them in the face --- one is my own computer, and right beside it is the company's).
I have managed to write a novel over the past year, despite (or perhaps because of) being affixed to a monitor. And I manage to get a couple of miles of exercise every day once I am untethered. But I do feel sort of like "Donovan's Brain" sometimes.
2
@CK I agree with most of the things you wrote and respect your decision to not have a cellphone. I am not that strong! However, I have to point out that I find it extremely hard to believe that you 'never had bullying' when you went to school. I have to acknowledge that social media aggravates bullying these days but kids have been bullied for a long time before cellphones existed.
1
@CK When I was in grade school, we still had public phone lines. And bullying existed. The difference between old-school (pun intended) and now is that in the old days the bully got in your face and pushed you around. Now? They just hurl some catty insults on YouTube and think they are tough. But its easy to block people and the problem goes away.
Silicon Valley corporations in search of never-ending profit for their investors sold us a bill of goods that all new tech constituted progress and that disruption was the wave of the future. The former is getting us a generation of gadget junkies, an infrastructure, government, and, military dependent on Chinese chips with their likely embedded code controlled from Beijing, and informational "democracy", where all opinions are equally valid.
As long as there are people willing to buy snake oil, there will be people willing to sell it.
6
Another thing. The real goal of many people looking at screens is to "look away" and disengage from their current environment not necessarily "look at" or engage the screen.
8
I’m currently reading “The New Childhood: Raising Kids to Thrive in a Connected World” by Jordan Shapiro. A great read for parents dealing with their kids in the digital age.
1
Thank you to Christopher Lee for his haunting, beautiful photography. We've reached a point in time when the mass of technology available to us literally overshadows anything else in our sphere. I am depressed on a daily basis, and I mean literally depressed, by what I see: people walking with their dogs or children while staring into their phones, completely disembodied from the reality at hand. Meanwhile, dogs looking into their human's eyes to verify that everything is good receive no verification.
I am appalled when I see parents sitting like lumps, staring at their phones, while their children compete for attention. Whenever they do get recognition, it comes in monosyllabic grunts from their otherwise disengaged parental unit.
Last summer I saw a father teaching his daughter to ride a bike, and when she finally took off on her own, she looked back at the father who was supposed to be running behind her, joyfully encouraging her newfound ability. Instead, she looked back upon a man who had left her side to stare into a phone.
The last straw was when I saw a father and sun jogging together along Riverside Drive. I breathed deeply the summer air, a sense of everything being okay, as at least *these* two were really with each other in a shared moment. Sadly, as they made their approach, I saw that each of them was staring into a phone, oblivious to the sun setting over the Hudson, the nightbirds making their rounds, the very shortness of life.
What have we become?
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@Regina Valdez The two dads may have been staring at some kind of running app that was keeping a pace for them.
1
I believe it's worse. We spend more time looking at a digital monitors (on any device) than looking at the real world in general, not just people. That's a scary thought even if it's close.
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Mmmmm, yes. It's totally obvious, and well documented in any research you care to look at.
Why does anyone need this explained to them?
Why indeed?
2
In the pre-internet age, I always carried a book, magazines, newspaper to read. My cell phone has made that unnecessary. I honestly don’t see screen time spent reading as anything to worry about.
9
@Patrick - if I get on the bus and see folks with a paper or magazine or book it seems strange to me and I have grey hair. I keep thinking of all of the trees that keep getting cut down for disposable reading. Yeah, yeah, the books could be donated but my neighborhood is full of people trying to give away books that no one wants to read.
There is a recycling bin placed next to the mail boxes in our apartment building. Everyday my box is filled with coupon flyers (who still cuts out coupons?) and offers for lots of companies that don't even have a store in Seattle. The postal service won't let us opt out of "spam mail" so everyday, I throw a stack of paper into recycling. I get easily frustrated with stupidity and it seems beyond stupid to mail me garbage everyday thinking I will warm up to your company that may not even have a storefront in city limits.
1
Waiting at a traffic light the other day, I watched a young woman walking across the street looking completely engrossed with her phone. I was amazed at how oblivious she was to her surroundings. Sidewalks here are treacherous at best even when paying attention. She would also be easy pickings for a mugger. Safety concerns aside, she had just walked by a most magnificent piece of architecture and the light was stunning. I can't imagine anything on the phone being more compelling. Being in the present moment can be very magical.
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As a grandparent of three young girls, I am frequently at playgrounds, beaches, activity facilities and parks . I'm appalled at the number of parents with phone in hand, oblivious to what their children are doing. It's pathetic parenting, but also dangerous parenting. I'm betting a huge number of injuries to and deaths of young children are linked to cellphone neglect.
13
I've been an artist for 60 years. So I watch people, animals, cars, trees. I watch the world. I'm careful not to ogle or offend. I simply observe. I love doing it. It's what people once did. But now when sitting at a coffee shop or in a park people will often look at me as if there's something wrong with me because I'm not staring at the thing in the palm of my hand. What could be wrong with me? I wish these devices had all happened after I'd died.
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Does anyone who thinks about climate change ever think maybe we should break from all this technology? It all runs on
electricity, gadgets keep needing replacement, doing things we can do for ourself (like turn on the radio). Keep technology for something more important than playing tic-tac-toe on the subway.
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@AFR....you mean you don't think we need driverless cars or trucks?? No Alexa? No Russian Interference and Chinese Cyber Hacking.Oh and what would we do without...Cyberbullying and Identity Theft and E Waste! Hold on Trump's on Twitter Again....can't live without knowing what he has to say.....esp. about Climate Change !!
Indeed, there is a social disconnect, where being hooked to an i-phone is the new normal, at the risk of looking anti-social, and a dangerous stand while using the public arena. Each time I use the Subway, 8 out of 10 travelers is transfixed by a portable Internet' image, game, or news (fake or not), or a solitary chat with the myriad friends that can't wait to be embraced (at a prudent distance, that is, 'free' from pesky emotional in-person joyful encounters we had yesteryear). However rich you may be, this divorce from reality is spiritual poverty, a Trumpian escape we hijacked ourselves into.
8
I saw a bench yesterday here in Hong Kong with about seven people sitting together all glued to their phone screens, and I remembered that not so many years ago this would have been a moment to take a photo as it looked so odd. Now it would be odd to see that many people without screens.
We have a completely different way to organise our lives, or time, and our attention these days. I find Sherry Turkle's work to be the most insightful in terms of keeping track of the importance of what we might be giving up so freely.
My guess is that we will find our way back to balance in the coming decades, and probably lose a bit of something special along the way (yes, while also gaining something). But I honestly believe that some people will look back and feel that they gave up a significant chance to engage with others in richer ways than they did by clicking "like" or retweeting.
7
I noticed the change when I went back to grad school in the 80's. All of a sudden everyone was walking around with "Walkmans" and eye contact became a rare commodity.
9
These depressing, dystopian pictures remind me of an Orson Welles movie, The Trial.
6
Are we looking at our phones more so than our fellow human beings? I think so. It seems casual polite discussion between two people who don't know each other is extremely rare, as if to approach someone whose circle you are not in is...an intrusion. I can easily ascertain the number of times someone passes me by looking the other way or looking down far outnumbers the number of times we achieve eye contact enough to share a geniune human acknowledge, "how are you?"
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@David "It’s no longer considered rude to avert your gaze and stare down mutely at a glowing screen in public."
Before cellphones, it was less comfortable to avoid eye contact in public places. Now, with a phone, it's comfortable (and one can read something interesting during this time).
Eye contact is to be avoided in public places anyway. Look at a man, he might hit you (especially, but not exclusively, if he's a different color). Look at a woman, you might get on on Me-Too's hit list. Look at your phone, all is good, and the time is not wasted.
What happened to "Living in the now" or "be here and now" as it's sometimes called? The Zen way of living? Being constantly aware of your surroundings, the central and most important point with regards to martial arts training? Has it lost its luster; not popular anymore, just a fad? Avoid, and deflect. Real humans: encounter, engage, speak up ,make eye contact, listen, be direct and resolve any conflicts or misundrestandings. Sharing too is a postive direct action for how can you share without looking in a person's eyes and directly communicate your feelings and intentions? We had the "Beat Generation", the Hippie generation, even the Pepsi generation(only kidding), now we have the Wimpy Generation. Avoid people, eye contact and direct, personal , up front communication at all costs. It's safe and secure, unless of course someone just hacked your iphone/pad. Evolution? I seriously doubt it. Sheeple, being herded off a cliff with their smart phone in their hands.
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I too am reading this article on my computer screen. I don't have a smart phone, but I love that other people do.... you see, I sketch people on the el here in Chicago. People looking at their phone don't move... it makes it much easier to draw them : ) silver lining?
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@88buckaroo- you can still sketch them without their phones. Okay, i'm an old relic but i've seen it done, even had one done by a guy sitting in Washington Sq park many, many years ago. It is possible, just ask. No miracles needed.
2
Within the last 24 hours, I've watched numerous parents shove a device in front of kids at dinner venues, I've had a few collisions with clueless walkers so engrossed in their phones as to be oblivious to the world around them (I walk in a straight line) and I saw a lady nearly get killed by walking into the street again staring at a phone.
Darwin, please reintroduce that law?
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@Brian in FL ... In some places, it does look like people look at their screens as much or more than at people.
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@Brian in FL- Darwin never considered, DE-evolution as a possibility. too bad, it could have saved us from today's madness.
1
My adult son and I were eating in a little cafe in Joshua Tree. He had just arrived for a visit from Japan. "What is THAT?!" He pointed to something behind me. A couple sat, barely talking, while their baby - who could not have been more than 14-15 months old - played on a little cell pad.
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@Mary Sojourner ... Perhaps we will be giving birth to babies who are born replete with a phone attached, you think?
So the Times has finally caught up with the "times". A wee bit late on the scene. This has been going on for over 15 years now, albeit 15 years ago we didn't have Twitter or Facebook people were instead on their phones yapping away. I remember Back in 2002 while i was walking in the University of Oregon campus, a guy was struggling on his bike. In one hand he held a cup of coffee, the other a cellphone, trying to ride a bike while sipping coffe and talking on the phone at the same time. I stopped and watched as he continually fell off his bike. He just didn't get it. So thick headed and stubborn, wanting to do all three things. Some time later, whether days or weeks, i'm not sure, while riding on a bus near the U of O, we were waiting at an intersection for a bus to clear out of a bus stop infront of us, a cyclist crashed right into the back of of that bus, while yapping on the phone. So here we are now, nothing's changed ,even getting worse with people walking into traffic or fountains or crashing into pedestrians killing or injuring them, The Times suddendly decides people avoiding making eye contact or engaging others directly is now an important thing, more so than thousands of injuries and deaths per year by distracted drivers. More PC nonsense in my view. History will judge this generation of humans by our actions or inactions and sadly we're not looking good. Lack of intelligence, lack of common sense and embracing obsessive compulsive neurotic behavior.
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I worry a bit about adults becoming addicted to these things. I am sure I'd be there with them if I went to anything smaller than my desktop for the Internet.
But I worry a LOT about parents giving any of the little time they have with their CHILDREN to these lifeless screens.
Parents that I know would endanger their own lives to save their kids from harm toss away the precious time they have with kids just to know what someone on social media thinks about something.
I have sat in restaurants watching a single parent surrounded by junior-high and higher males who say NOT one WORD and never take their eyes from the screens.
This has got to stop somewhere. What if we closed the cell towers for an hour every evening?
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@The Observer When I was a kid growing, all television went off the air at a certain time and didn't come back on until the early morning news. After Tom Snider signed off you got a black and white circle with a number in it and a continuous "beep". There was no choice but to talk to mom. There was nothing else to do.
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@tom Harrison...In my area we also had the test patterns but there was also a television station that was blurred during off air times . Sometimes I'd be up at 3 am quietly looking at the blurry screen trying to make out the movie when my father would suddenly appear in the room. He'd say... it's 3 am...shut that thing off.. what are you afraid you're going miss something...get back to bed! Maybe that's our problem today...we're afraid we're going to miss something!
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@Dave Yes...FOMO
What distresses us is how much phones and other media have captured our grandchildren's attention. We are constantly having to set "limits" on phones, and that's not what grandparents are supposed to do. We are supposed to spoil the little critters. But "spoiling" them doesn't mean letting them roam the internet.......or snort OcyContin.
What does it mean for their developing brains to be so "captured" by the pretend world of their phones? We see the early forms of addiction in them, and it troubles us.
And yet, what do their parents do? Their parents are people who are "at home" for their kids, trying their best. Do they cut them off completely and make their kids weird socially? They are trapped, just as our grandchildren are trapped.
This is NOTHING like what it used to be where parents had to set limits on TV watching or using the one family phone. Those activities had built-in limits. There was one TV and there was one telephone. Now? There are no built-in limits.
Instead of just being grandparents we feel we are "coping" with these machines.....all of the time when we are with them. Something is dreadfully wrong here. And it frightens us.
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@Dan — You are so right to worry about your grandchildren. Prolonged direct eye contact with a soft loving gaze, whether talking or not, is critical for infants and young children to develop a healthy sense of themselves in a safe environment. When they seek a parent’s gaze and the parent makes staying on the phone, verbally or by staring at it, more important than responding to the eye contact, the child becomes more at risk for failed attachment. Without attachment, the interior feeling of being connected and supported, the child is more likely to feel insignificant, become depressed, etc. Not a good foundation for the future.
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The irony is that most of us reading this story are doing so viewing it on a screen. Perhaps then, all those photos are people reading the NY Times? One can only hope there's a ray of sunshine in these dark images.
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@Stew
Yes, but for the most part we're not trying to do something else at the same time, like walk down a street, drive a car, or converse with our neighbor.
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@Stew
If that is their only source of news on the subjects of government and politics, the country is in worse shape than we dared think.
@Stew True, but I'm looking at my device while sitting on my couch in my living room - alone.
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"We are much more likely to be looking at our digital slabs than at our fellow human beings." Key context here is that this is true for people transversing the public sphere or operating in an environment where there is no immediate apparent gain to engaging in people within your immediate sphere. (Maybe dinner out with Mom and Dad or a slog through a urine-soaked subway.) But and this is an important "but," if the person is in an environment with someone or some people they feel connecting with can benefit them in some way or they are inordinately attracted to they will straighten up adjust their hair, put on a smile drop the screen and engage. People always abandoned engaging with others when a better opportunity popped up all that the screens have done is broaden the scope of the hunt. We were always swiping left and right. It's just now the people around you are competing with the infinite supply of people and things on your screen.
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@Belasco
I hate to tell you this and NYT feel free to censor if you don't think it's appropriate, but remember when Donald Trump said he could shoot somebody in the middle of 5th Avenue and no one would do anything about it?? IMO that because people would be too engrossed looking at their phones to even notice!! Ha!
@Belasco
Yes! Well said!
Dear Mr. Lee and Ms. Nancherla,
I believe that you are missing the point. The main idea of this article, forgive me if I'm wrong, seems to be that technology is making us a divided and anti-social society. One where we are more inclined to look at our phones, rather than communicate with the people around us. However, I believe that you are missing the point entirely. Technology is not making us more divided, rather it is making us more connected than ever.
While your pictures are good, I see something completely opposite of what you're seeing. Rather than people being disconnected from the world around them, I see a man keeping in touch with an old college friend, I see a woman talking with her kid half way across the country, I see people communicating with other people all around the world.
One of the common misconceptions about technology is that it makes us disconnected from the world around us, and it seems to be demonstrated in these pictures. However, what I hope that my examples show is that technology is not making us disconnected from our world whatsoever. Rather, we are the most connected we have ever been in history. I mean before the invention of the phone, could you talk with a person all the way in Australia, could you send an urgent business email to your companies headquarters a few states away, could you have written this article for people around the entire world to see. It's not like we've become disconnected from reality. We've just found a new one.
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@Hayden I'm going to suggest an analogy to illustrate why your analysis is just a tad askew.
Sex is a an amazing tool for connecting people, sharing intimacy, and proclaiming love for those special people in our lives.
But we don't do it on the subway.
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@Hayden
Your being disconnected from your immediate surroundings while being over-connected to limitless possibilities in the virtual surround will cause me to blast my horn at you lollygagging in the crosswalk, texting away as I'm trying to make a right turn on red to get to an appointment at a physical destination while you, oblivious and unmindful, are somewhere between the crosswalk and Australia.
I'm not worried about unrealized positive social interaction with strangers in public places. I'm worried about the general erosion among the screen-starers of the mindfulness-of-others in public places in your brave new reality.
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@Hayden Amen! You said it better than I could have! :)
Looking at my phone usually gives me security. I don't have to meet a male gaze or interact with such men. I'm reading a book most likely on the phone. I know when to let down my book or my phone and to whom and when.
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These days a sight one commonly sees in parks, coffee shops, stores, playgrounds, is children being ignored while the parent, usually the mother, is engrossed in her smart phone. The children get no smiles, affection, attention or interaction. Even crying or whining children are ignored in favor of the machine. And when the child is old enough to scroll, he or she gets their own device and then both parent and child can ignore each other completely. How many times have I and others seen a child start screaming when someone tries to get them to stop using the device.
While out at a restaurant the other evening, I was able to say to my companion about a couple at another table: "Oh look, there is a young man and a young woman, both looking at their phones and not talking to each other, they must be on a date!"
The zombification of modern machine-droids. Humans are passe.
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@Earthling
If the mother at the playground or the couple at the restaurant were holding books, would you feel the same way? There seems to be a strong bias against phones, but less distaste when people are holding books. I’m on my phone a lot, but it’s because I’m reading. I’d hardly call myself a zombie.
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@Deanna - If any parent was at a park and not watching their kids like a hawk, I would be disappointed. The time to read the book is when you put the kids to bed for a nap or the night. Or when you have a Calgon bath or something.
Reading a book while your kids play at home is one thing. You control that environment. But once we walk out the front door, its time to pay attention.
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Chris, great photos (as always). People walking around staring at small screens is one of my big pet peeves, especially when they bump into me or are standing in my way.
I share a similar apprehension with chimping photographers, but that may be a different story.
I'm not a Luddite; I use an iDevice for route navigation on bikepacking trips and weather information. I have an app, Peak Finder, that points out various mountains, volcanoes and mole hills, including where and when the moon and sun will rise and set.
I don't have any social media apps on the device, other than Instagram, which has a 30 minute limit.
6
Thank you for channeling my grandparents; they were convinced that with a telephone at home, all morals would evaporate. People have died while on the phone. Then it was my parents who claimed I would never complete a grade if I watched TV any time before test. I suspect a lot of people died watching TV or soon after. My colleagues used to brag that they used a typewriter; others said they would never leave a message on the phone. Luddites.
Get with it, people. Scrolling is great. Morality has survived telephones, and most kids pass their exams despite TV.
I am loving this addiction. It is an intense engagement in hyper reality; it is more compelling, technicolor, and its intensity and engagement can be moderated. One can float around in endlessly, being here and there at the same time, with the convenience of scrolls, clicks, what not. There is floating on Snapchat, peeping and creeping on Facebook, gadflies on Twitter, fashion icons on Instagram. Then there is the most compelling rabbit hole of all, youtube.
Harmless. We should celebrate. It beats Prozac, meth, and conversations with boring people.
Real life is over-rated.
I hope Elon Musk, sooner rather than later, give us the option to transfer our consciousness in cyberspace. We wont even have to be here; we could be everywhere, doing everything - all at once. Okay by me if you want to be worm food; it would nice to have Musk's option. Then the scrolling truly is endless.
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@Kalidan Harmless?? See what the future brings. Real life is only over-rated if you have not experienced or appreciated all that if offers... One need to be present for that to happen. It can't happen on any screen one is looking at.
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@Kalidan I'm closer to death than birth and...well, I guess we all are actually...what I mean to say is that I'm not young but still like your perspective and embrace technology and all it might offer in a hope, or dream, or delusion of immortality. After-all, humans have come up with all types of ideas to counteract the big D.
The problem that arises is how the technology shapes people's ability to interact with real-time physical humans directly around them. It also begs the question of copycat culture. Are we acting so spaceman-like or simply just copying what everyone else is doing?
Studies show that attention spans are shortened and addictive traits enhanced. But okay, maybe the trade-off for that is worth it. That still leaves discretion about how and when to use such technology. Should you be scrolling while exiting the subway in your own world while I would like to make my way upstairs without clobbering you over the head? In a fast-paced city like New York, people need to pay attention for all kinds of reasons. The ubiquitous scrolling removes the wherewithal of physical navigation.
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@Kalidan I’m not sure how to take your comment. It looks a little Modest-Proposalish to me as it progresses in outlandishness. In other words, an extreme defense of screen-life purposely to the point of absurdity: “real life is overrated”; “we could be everywhere, doing everything.” Not an argument but a caricature of an argument.
1
There seems to be this fantasy that before we had mobile screens we were all interacting with strangers in public. Where did that come from? In the pre-screen era we buried ourselves inside of newspapers, books, magazines, walkmans, discmans, MP3 players.. The screens in our pockets didn't create the behavior we see now, it just amplified it.
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@Mario
That's not the dimension that should be considered, rather the absolute immediate gratification and lack of momentary presence caused by these things that might be a problem.
4
Maybe that was true for residents of NYC. I don't doubt it. But much of the rest of the country used to be different.
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@Mario
And you did that while driving, dining with friends/family, attending your child's school or recreational events, during meetings at work or elsewhere, visiting museums and monuments, or in the theater, right?
No, that behavior was reserved for dining alone, sitting in waiting rooms, riding on trains or planes or - maybe - walking down a city street.
1
Set your screen timeout to one minute and do not use any shortcut log in techniques (thumb print or facial recognition).
Move all non-essential apps off your home screen. Delete apps for all social media so that you have to log on through a browser.
And women really should not be absorbed in their screens while walking in public. It's the opposite of "street smarts."
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@Third.Coast
Exactly! A distracted person focused on his/her phone is an easier victim than one who is aware of surroundings. First photo was actually kinda creepy....
1
I was recently on an elevator with several people most staring at their wee screens, but one particularly rapt woman looked to up to discover she had several stories gone past her floor. "Should've looked up" was all I dared say. Hope she doesn't wander into a shopping mall fountain or into a wall or off a cliff.
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The movie that I think is most apt for our times is the 1956 original version of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" with its seed pods from outer space taking over the bodies of normal people
and draining them of emotion and self-assertion. The director, Don Siegel, told interviewer Peter Bogdanovich: " I think the world is sick; the pods are taking over . . . . Most people . . . go unthinking about their work. They're not aware of what's going on about them; they're very selfish . . . I'm blinded by being busy and I don't like to think about it. So, I'm becoming one of those people that I hate. I'm becoming a pod."
Yes, the internet with its laptop-and-smart-phone delivery-systems is full of expressed emotions and assertions of individuality; but here more than ever, it seems to me, the Medium is the Message.
How can the worldwide shift of focus from surroundings to screens not be the most momentous shift in human cultural history? The worldwide shift of focus from surroundings to
printed matter beginning 500 plus years ago unfolded slowly
by comparison to this seemingly overnight/seemingly all-pervasive digital-device saturation. And that older technology provided no means of response and dissemination at the speed of light.
There are two related old science-fiction films that I think can speak to the developing generation that has been born with a smartphone in the crib: "Village of the Damned" and its sequel "Children of the Damned."
13
Yesterday provided an interesting example of smartphone addiction. While losing their first playoff game at home against the underdog Nets, Philadelphia players Joel Embiid and Amir Johnson were caught looking at a phone instead of the game while on the bench. They couldn't even be bothered to watch the game they were then playing in and losing. One they were being paid to play in and which was televised nationally. Instead they wanted to check social media. It really has gotten out of control.
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@Benjo It's hard to understand why the phones are permitted for players during the game. I guess it's part and parcel of the athlete dictating the terms of engagement while management finds coaches who can embrace the so-called modern player. One day, even those on the court will have the latest super-sport version of Google glass to assess their opponent's weakness and at the same time check the latest tweets by Beyonce or Lady Gaga. But look at the upside: scrolling will be as outdated as the 1984 MTV Music Awards.
@Benjo
But how are they to know they exist?
The screens are bad, but to a certain extent the earbuds are even worse. They are a clear signal of a desire not to engage with the world in any capacity.
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@Toby I use my earphones so selectively these days. Most of the time I feel lucky just to take in all the natural sounds of the concrete jungle.
I own an iPhone and am happy to be relieved of it for several hours a day when I am running/working/studying/sleeping.
Though there are definite advantages to having a smartphone (safety, witnessing something, directions, etc.), I think it's important to get away from the screen in order to not become a "zombie" of sorts. Too often, people on their phones have almost collided into me during my runs, even after I have tried to avoid them by swerving (and have had the gall to curse ME out!). I can't break when I'm in mid-air - that's just physics (and common sense); it is NOT MY job to pay attention for both of us. Looking at a screen and not taking the time to pay attention while moving around in public is harmful and should be taught as something you DON'T do unless you can stop and step out of the way until you finish texting, reading, etc.
My experiences on the subway have been just as telling - no one looks up to offer their seat to a pregnant/elderly/injured/ill-looking person. Some people are so oblivious, that they take up more than their own seat on the subway - as if the person next to them doesn't exist - and extend their limbs as if they're sitting at home on their couch.
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@Mithu I'm not sure there's another city in which the phone has been a more wonderful shield to hide behind than Boston, where I moved four years ago and where a cabbie told me one of the rule of the city is that "if you make eye contact, you lose." My sense is that nobody gave up seats of paid attention to their mutual subway riders before the phone. But now they can be even more oblivious. It truly makes my day when one person on the commuter rail actually makes eye contact with me and we exchange a quick smile.
3
Insight doesn't mean change; change means change.
@Julie the heart of any approach to therapy that works.
It’s everywhere. More in China than anyplace else I have been.
One good thing: there’s much less litter from the newspapers that people don’t read anymore.
10
I beg your pardon but I still consider it rude for one to interrupt our face to face conversation to answer one's phone, text, etc. There's not much I can do about it though. Because I also consider it rude for me to point out my conversant's breach. So a Catch-22. And down the rabbit hole we all fall......
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@Jeff P I've lost a few friends over this. It's one thing for one of my mom friends to check in with the babysitter or the kids. I can live with a friend who needs to make a quick call to the spouse to let them know where they are or what time to expect them etc. But one so-called friend decided to have a protracted chat with another friend. I picked up and left. Haven't spoken to her since and don't miss the friendship at all.
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Access to more information does not mean that humans will be better informed, smarter or wiser.
Human ignorance can be partially cured by curiosity. Not knowing that 2+2= 4 is an example of ignorance.
Stupidity is incurable and terminal. Knowing that 2+ 2= 5 is beyond redemption by curiosity.
Humans can be full of pride while ignorant or stupid.
Any answer or information that is infinite is neither ignorant nor stupid.
It is beyond any human means for gathering and correlating knowledge into a package that can be tested and controlled by either the scientific method or by any other pattern recognition organized academic means.
Humans are neither gods nor angels nor demons nor devils. Humans are biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit African primate apes. Driven by our nature and nurture to crave fat, salt, sugar, habitat, water, kin and sex by any means necessary including conflict and cooperation.
Humans are incapable of knowing everything.
2
First of all, thank you for the B&W imagery. I assume they are digital but it takes me back to my many days with Dektol, stop and fix. That said, I am glad I no longer inject those chemicals into the environment even after recovering the silver and proper disposal. The only selfie I have ever taken was with a timer delay on a shutter. Civilization IRL? I know the definition of civilization but sorry, I don't know what the acronym IRL stands for. That should provide context on me.
I don't own a smart phone. I haven't the need for one although I understand why it is a necessity for many. I don't feel uneasy when I am out and about and have time to kill. Observation and imagination are sufficient company. Everything I view I frame as a potential picture, drawing or story. The F/stops with me.
19
Is this also what more people are doing while walking through parks and gardens, fields and streams? If so, they are as two dimensional as those screens they stare at where imagery is blotting out reality while life is happening.
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@A Goldstein Yep. That's what they are doing. It must be very addictive. I travel a lot internationally and often I am in a gorgeous foreign city and I watch as all the tourists walk around staring down into their screens, missing the beautiful people, nature, architecture, sculpture, and so much more. Now and then they stop to take a selfie and then they look at themselves. They miss so much.
I honestly can't understand why they spend thousands of dollars to go to wonderful places and not actually experience those places or the people in those places and the art, etc. Is it to just grab some selfies to post to Instagram or whatever is the hot platform? Or maybe it is what you say...they are blotting out reality?
14
@Lotus Blossom - Or they keep looking at the map to find their way in a strange city? Usually when I see tourists here staring at their phones, they are trying to find the statue of Jimi Hendrix up on Capitol Hill. Its in plain view yet you can walk past it everyday for years and never notice it. The poor people see the address on the internet, they look up at street numbers (in a strange language), they see the blue dot on the map showing that they should be standing on top of Jimi yet nowhere to be found. I don't think everyone staring at a phone is blotting out reality. I think a lot are lost. I have helped three tourist groups find Jimi in the last year and they were all quite grateful for the help. They were all within a 100 yards and still couldn't find him.
My smartphone allows my disabled adult child to communicate with me all day long, and I always know where he is. It makes him more independent and helps me advocate for him when he is too distressed to do it himself. Also, I was in a busy airport yesterday and our plane was delayed and so many people went off to find food or use the time some other way - and then the plane we UNdelayed and everyone who had left the gate was notified on their phone to return and the plane actually left earlier than expected. So, let’s hear it for using technology for good reasons.
24
@S Connell The only thing I think is great about this new technology is the access that it provides for the disabled. But otherwise, back in the day, they just announced plane departures over the loudspeaker and real life airline reps helped.
7
Never owned a smartphone and never will. One day we will recognize the addictive potential of these devices, and their tendency to isolate. Parents in the stands watching their kids play hockey or soccer is a case in point. With nothing else better to do, conversation used to be natural. Now other people don't exist, except perhaps virtually.
9
@Kyle
We recognize the addiction...problem is too many are addicted. Am a high school teacher, students are on them all day long and are resentful when you tell them to put it away. The damage has been done.
23
@dude
I see the same thing at a university--tremendous resentment at being asked to put away their phones. And many of them show little empathy toward their peers or anyone else. I find it sad and disturbing.
21
@BFG
Me too. I am a Professor. Now when I give a bathroom break, in a rather long class, students no longer use it.
They sit there texting and checking their phones, rather than getting up to stretch or taking a brief walk. Like slaves, gotta get on that phone.
Some students no longer wish to participate in small group discussions in class. They are no longer comfortable talking to one another face to face. I find that alarming and a little sad.
It's amazing how fast these societal changes have happened.
At some point, I may have to allow students to text one another while they sit right next to one another. How absurd is that?
16
I know a photographer who lives in Jerusalem who has been recording this phenomenon for the last few years and his collection is a sad reflection on modern society. I’ve also seen it while riding the metro in Madrid, walking through the airport, or when walking down the street. I once watched a young mother with a stroller enter a Starbucks and never once looked up from her phone or acknowledged in anyway the person who held the door for her or at the barista who took her order. Nor did she look at her baby. It was as if the stroller was just something attached to her hand. Amazing someone could be so callous.
51
@Philip
Yes. I am a people watcher. The most alarming thing to see is families not interacting and parents no longer even looking at their children. That signals to the child that they are not important.
And people will wonder in a few years why a whole generation has some sort of social anxiety or psychological disorder. No wonder they make thousands of selfies. Nobody is looking at them ... but themselves.
25
Thank you for sharing your observations, all of which I (and many others) can corroborate, because we see these types of behaviors each and every day.
Parents who essentially ignore their very young infants and toddlers because they are seduced away by the shiny screens of their assorted devices later wonder why their children are not as securely attached as they had hoped for.
Why do the young ones seem anxiety ridden? Why do they have tantrums? Why do they frequently get to be, and remain, disregulated in the presence of their screen-transfixed parents?
It’s in large part because their parents prefer to look at their screens and, in so doing, ignore their children.
Unless, of course, it’s time for a selfie with baby to show the world, what a happy family they are.
#blessed. #grateful.
19
This is optional.
1
Having spent years commuting on the NYC subways and riding NYC elevators long before the advent of smartphones, it is clear that if people did not have smartphones to stare at, they would go back to staring at the floor or averting the gaze of fellow riders. At least with smartphones there is a possibility of doing something constructive.
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@Jay Orchard
Or destructive.
8
Not sure about this Jay. People aren’t chatting to each other as much on trains anymore because they’re staring at their phones. School kids are abnormally quiet gazing at their digital devices. And staring out the window can be time for quiet contemplation.
16
These pictures are powerful. They make me sad. One of the things I like about visiting the Hasidic community in Williamsburg, where I am a tour guide, is the remarkable absence of teens with earbuds, adults scrolling, kids just standing around watching the firemen empty a hydrant. I know the Hasidic community gets a lot of heat (often rightfully) but it is refreshing to see a part of New Tork City that isn’t all these images.
12
I was in a restaurant in Manchester VT and watched as a 5 year old boy was having a conversation with Elmo on his phone while his mother sat staring and scrolling with her phone. Ah, those childhood memories!
Parents, consider sacrificing what ever positives you gain from endlessly scrolling on your phone for recouping the opportunity costs for your children.
63
Rab, SO true. I was at the counter of diner on the UWS of NYC last year; it was a late afternoon on a Wednesday and observed a father in his late 30’s with his son, perhaps age 6 or 7, who had just come from Little League practice. My first reaction was “Aw, what a great father to take time out during the day to be with his son”. However, my feelings were dispelled over the next 60 minutes; the conversation between the two was comprised of the son telling his father what he wanted to eat and that was that. During the rest of the time, the father was fully engaged with his IPhone; his son ate and looked around with absolutely nothing to keep him occupied. I felt so sorry for that little boy; he knew he was being ignored and knew not to interrupt his father’s relationship with his screen. I don’t think the father would ignore a singular dining companion in this manner - why would he do so to one of his children? And the irony is that this father is likely to be the first to chastise one of his children for texting during dinner.
5
@Christine Houston
I watch mothers pushing baby carriages past my house while talking on their phones. They are oblivious to their children with whom they can't even make facial contact.
I compare that to when my children were infants and toddlers. I pushed them in their carriages or strollers and talked to them. When they were babies, it was the usual cooing sort of thing that made them smile. (Yes, we were face-to-face, quaint.) As they learned to talk, I pointed things out to them and taught them names for their environment. In short, the child got what is referred to in mental health as an enriched experience both interpersonally and intellectually. Beat that, Facebook.