Isn’t it ironic that the one device that is meant to connect us to the world is the reason why we’re often disconnected from everyone and everything we love?
It seems that our lives are now defined by and lived in the small rectangular frame of our phones. Most people who own phones are known to suffer from Cellphone Separation Anxiety and cannot part from it under any circumstances.
Our attachment to phones led photographer Eric Pickersgill to start a photo series called Removed in which he captures moments showing people using their cell phones; except he has removed the phones in his photos to prove just how addicted we have become.
“The joining of people to devices has been rapid and unalterable. The application of the personal device in daily life has made tasks take less time. Faraway places and people feel closer than ever before. Despite the obvious benefits that these advances in technology have contributed to society, the social and physical implications are slowly revealing themselves,” he wrote on his blog.
His inspiration for the monochromatic series came from a family he witnessed sitting together at a cafe in New York — each member on their respective phones, yet disconnected on an emotional, physical and mental level.
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Family sitting next to me at Ilium 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,” Eric narrated on his blog.
“Personal devices are shifting behaviors while simultaneously blending into the landscape by taking form as being one with the body. This phantom limb is used as a way of signaling busyness and unapproachability to strangers while existing as an addictive force that promotes the splitting of attention between those who are physically with you and those who are not,” he added.
