Photographer Removes Mobile Devices in Photos to Prompt Reflection on Their Usage


As a culture, we're so accustomed to seeing people engaged with phones and tablets as we walk around in public, we don't give these frequent sights a second thought. Artist and photographer Eric Pickersgill decided to provoke people into giving these familiar scenes a second look by photographing them and removing the electronic devices. This seemingly insignificant photo editing tweak gives the images just the right "jolt" needed for the viewer to reflect on the true oddity of the situation. Pickersgill's resulting photo series, some of which is pictured here, is called Removed. 

The photographer's inspiration was a sight he saw at a diner one day. He wrote of the scene,

"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."

See the entire photo series and read more of Pickersgill's thoughts at his website. 

Via Refinery 29 | Images: Eric Pickersgill



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As further evidence in favor of the going theory that they could be looking at anything, today's article on Neatorama entitled: "Cool Vintage Photos of People Reading".

Remove the books and such and it's exactly the same as this article's images, only from a different age when our tech didn't exist. You can clearly see that the behavior of gathering in groups and ignoring each other to read stuff is exactly the same as it was back then.

People complain about these things without realizing that the same things have happened before with less tech and no serious detriment to the human race then, either.
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Good points, PlasmaGryphon and ursusblue. You too, THAT Alan. They were actually looking at porn but I was embarrassed to admit it, so I made up that story about the artsy stuff.
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Agreed. Remove any other external stimuli from the photo and you have a similar image. My daughter has her nose buried in her Kindle, would we think twice if it was an actual book?
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Most of the pictures look about the same to me as if someone removed books or cameras from people's hands. But maybe that isn't what was intended, as people think very differently of a book and a smart phone. A family reading together would also be disconnected, but people would probably pick more positive descriptions for such an image.
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