Do you ever stop to think whether our lives are improved now that we have smartphones and constant access to the virtual world? That perhaps we’re just a little too addicted to staring at our technology instead of focusing on what’s going on around us? If you’re starting to think that the world has gone mad, then you’ll appreciate these street photographs by Babycakes Romero.
Part of a series called The Death of Conversation, Romero decided to capture people on their phones after he realized just how many were doing it. He said:
“It originally caught my eye as there was a certain symmetry to these people locked simultaneously yet separately in the same action and it appealed on a visual level, but as I continued, I noticed an inherent sadness to the proceedings. I saw that smartphones were becoming a barrier to communication in person. I saw how people used it as a social prop, to hide their awkwardness, to fill the silence but as I continued to observe and document this modern phenomena I felt that the devices were actually causing the awkwardness and the silence. They basically allow people to withdraw rather than engage.”
“All social etiquette regarding the use of phones in company seems to have disappeared. The device take precedence over the person that is present and that felt wrong. It is a form of rejection and lowers the self-worth of the person superseded for a device. I feel it also highlighted a growing sense of self-absorption in people as they would rather focus on their world in their phone rather than speak to the person they are with.”
[via creative boom]