It’s often been commented that in today’s technology dependent age that it’s impossible to have a conversation with someone at the bar or a restaurant without checking your phone to see what’s going on some place else in the world. People have even invented that game where you put your phones in the middle of the table at the pub and the first one to touch theirs has to buy the round as a way of combatting it.
It may not seem like a serious problem, but these photographs from photographer Eric Pickersgill illustrate just how detached from each other and how reliant upon our phones everyone is becoming. Basically, you might be hanging out with someone, but most of the time you’re not even looking at them or paying attention to them. This is painfully illustrated in this photo series ‘Removed’ where you see couples, families, friends and even a husband and groom on their wedding day more interested in their phones than each other. Grim.
Eric explained his mentality behind the series:
Despite the obvious benefits that these advances in technology have contributed to society, the social and physical implications are slowly revealing themselves.
I had the idea for this photo series sitting in a cafe one morning.
Family sitting next to me at Illium café in Troy, NY is so disconnected from one another. Not much talking. Father and two daughters have their own phones out. Mom doesn’t have one or chooses to leave it put away. She stares out the window, sad and alone in the company of her closest family.
Dad looks up every so often to announce some obscure piece of info he found online. Twice he goes on about a large fish that was caught. No one replies. I am saddened by the use of technology for interaction in exchange for not interacting. This has never happened before and I doubt we have scratched the surface of the social impact of this new experience.
Mom has her phone out now.
The image of that family, the mother’s face, the teenage girls’ and their father’s posture and focus on the palm of their own hands has been burned in my mind.
The same kinds of faces and expressions will now be burned into your head too after you scroll through this photo series.
(Click the arrows below to navigate through the slides.)
