As my friends and I waited for our lunch to arrive, I sat silently (too hungry to converse about the latest fashion trends) observing our surroundings. I notice a few large canvas paintings, that resemble screen printing, that hung peacefully on the calming clean walls. As my eyes wander down from the artwork and onto the couple seated across the aisle from our table, I saw that they were both preoccupied with capturing the perfectly angled close-up shot of their meals.
Would you like to add Lo-Fi or Nashville for an extra fifty cents?
That may as well be added onto the menus on this planet. My eyes continued to wander around to the other tables and, by no surprise, they were all guilty of forcing their food to become flawless photogenic creatures. Sometimes, food just wants to be food – is that okay with you?!
I took my first bite as my friends still had not yet found the winning shot to showcase. One stood up and performed a squat for an aerial shot. Another transformed into the Hunchback of Notre Dame to get an extreme close-up. The other made at least three chins to achieve a decent high shot. By now, I was probably up to my eighth bite.
This is man’s new best friend. Not your dog, but the high definition digital photograph of your dog taken from your smartphone – the smartest of all smartphones.
How have we become so disconnected to reality? I know, at least for myself, that I am attached to my mobile. It’s something I always grip onto and it almost acts like a security blanket. It worries me that slight paranoia kicks in when my phone isn’t with me. Even when I’m typing this now, I have my phone just centimetres away from my hand.
I think technology is wonderful. All these vast rapid advancements are fascinating to experience. However, it is also one thing that worries me in this technologically driven world. Will we keep up with technology? Will it overtake us eventually? Will we ever experience what’s right in front of us the same again? Or will we be too distracted on concentrating on the experience our small screens give us instead? Tangible experiences, connections, communication, and interactions are now uncommon. Let’s go back to basics. Watching the sun rise and set is a more fulfilling experience than being transfixed on taking twenty photos of the sun that you’ll most probably forget about the next day.
Experience with your senses. At the end of the day, it will give you much more than what a thin rectangular digital device can give.
A Banana Thinks... 