A Potteresque commentry on the face-sucking nature of our modern obsession with smartphones by Antoine Geiger.
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A Potteresque commentry on the face-sucking nature of our modern obsession with smartphones by Antoine Geiger.
excellent.
If I said I didn’t have a smartphone, would you think it was a good or bad thing?
You’d get my vote.
Cheers man.
Or woman, sorry.
Why is it a good or bad thing? It’s your thing. By the by, are you also doing without indoor plumbing and those new fangled freezer thingys you can keep food in?
2 no’s to that last question.
So if I said I didn’t have a freezer (which nobody did until the 1980s) would that be a good thing or a bad thing?
Do you stare at a freezer all day?
I use it to store food that isn’t good for me, like most people. And nobody stares at their phone all day.
Scary but true.
Brilliant
Oh no! People are consuming information in a new fashion that makes me feel uncomfortable! Fooping luddites.
[c]onsuming information..having just recently worked out what it means the subject goes on to use it with frequency.
The Luddites weren’t technophobes.
They were labour strategists.
Some of those people are just taking photos. Surely they would do the same thing if they only had a camera or a sketchbook, or a stone tablet and a chisel? Capturing the moment is hardly an invention of the smartphone, is it?
It’s not, no. This is basically people in their 20s and 30s saying ‘In my day…’
The point is that they are missing visual delights around them – not living the moment.
I’m all for the message behind this but the execution is really awful.
They’d be missing those visual delights if they were reading a book or a newspaper or chatting to their mate. Look at this picture; http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s–hu1dhvtJ–/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/197o1okyuiv27jpg.jpg
Human nature has not changed since the invention of the smartphone.
Once you read the paper, it’s read!
Yeah the guy in the third picture doing whatever on his phone like texting his kids or looking at a map is really missing out on the visual delight of that vandalised window shutter.
#WakingTheFeminists
The following video is interesting, a part touches on the advent of books (early 1900s) which were seen exactly as we see smartphones today!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD0x7ho_IYc
Nothing new so.
Expecto patronum…there now, it’s all fixed.
the inclusion of that last photo really annoys me — I’ve seen it unedited before and it’s a group of people viewing a guided tour of the museum on iPads. They’re learning; it’s no worse than any other museum audioguide.
Link to the unedited version of the photo please. No iPads in the shot that I can see. Yer man has the photo on his website saying he took it in Paris this year.
*bullpoo klaxon activated, opens popcorn*
ahhh crap. it was a similar-but-not-the-same image I was thinking of: https://infinitefreetime.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/tumblr_ngp1r0fjea1qz6f9yo1_1280.jpg
In any case, the guy on the right is clearly wearing a museum headset (or headphones from about 1993), while the two girls sitting together are chatting and looking at something together, not at seperate devices.
in any case, i think the series is a pretty obvious and non-nuanced statement.
People are getting obsessed with people being obsessed with their smartphones.
+1 It’s just another version of ‘kids these days’. It’ll never change.
Adults these days moaning about the selfies. In my day it was the text messages that were the end of civilisation as we know it and I remember when the C64 was the death of conversation, or the last remnants of conversation that had survived the arrival of the TV.
And at the start of the 20th century, magazines were going to ruin the learning development of children.
And 5 years ago they said an Irish satirical news blog would destroy productivity in the workplace.
They were right about that bit.
Waterford Whispers is around that long?
http://xkcd.com/1314/
Beat me to it.
Beat you to it. Ha.
Woah, he really showed the guy in the hat with that carefully scripted conversation.
Try this one https://xkcd.com/1227/
“The art of conversation is almost a lost one. People talk as they ride bicycles *at a rush without pause to consider their surroundings* *What has been generally understood as cultured society is rapidly deteriorating into baseness and voluntary ignorance.* The profession of letters is so little understood, and far from being so seriously appreciated….*newspapers are full*, not of thoughtful, honestly expressed public opinion of the affairs of the nation, but *of vapid personalities interesting to none save gossips and busy bodies.*”
Marie Corelli *1905*
I think you should take all those examples in the cartoon you have posted there, and in your own time compare them to the technologies in the photos above. If you can’t see any significant difference then I think you are blinding yourself to a level of nuance that I’m guessing you’d normally be privy to.
Obviously the point here is going over your head. Not to worry.
I doubt it has, you’ve communicated your points quite well. Unless there’s something you wish to add, just to be sure.
Well thanks, pal, but if your response is ‘books and magazines aren’t smartphones’ then it definitely went over your head.
Moyest you are the worst troll on here
I totally fell for it.
Normally, I think Moyest talks utter poo, but hes completely on the money here.
Calling him a troll because he’s making a perfectly valid AND supported point is one step above shilling accusations.
Nah he’s not a troll, just a pain in the bottom.
@rotide Moyest’s argument consists of a singular characterisation of a large swathe of people in various situations; who are interacting with significantly different technologies, to varied effect. Considering the epic generalisation within said claim of any/all criticisms, moyest needs more than a few favourable quotes plucked from obscurity to prove his/her outlook.
Not to say that xkcd isn’t worth a gawk.
@rotide With regard the idea that we’re calling moyest a troll to undermine his/her argument: you could be right.
There’s nothing wrong with smartphones, as such, the way I see it. This was predicted by some guy whose name I can’t remember (inconveniently) and they truly are a remarkable addition to our day-to-day lives. But this culture of ‘look at me and my perfect life/poor me and this crap thing that happened’ is a bit repellent to me. And smartphones are a part of that, which is simply unfortunate.
Pretty sure Bebo and Myspace predate smartphones.
Oh they do. I’m not saying that smartphones are the root of the issue, just part of it. That look at me attitude definitely predates the smartphone. I think it is just more… constant now because it is at our very fingertips.
+1