Awareness
Photographer Eric Pickersgill Removed Phones from Pictures to Show Us How Disconnected We Have Become
Photographer Eric Pickersgill has released a bunch of eye-opening photos of seemingly everyday life but with one important twist. He has removed all of the electronic devices from the shot. What these pictures demonstrate is how addicted we have become to our electronics.
When we should be engaging with the people around us we are instead stuck to our phone, tablets or iPads. The idea for the project came to Eric after he observed a family near him at a local café:
“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.”
“The image of that family, the mother’s face, the teenage girls’ and their father’s posture and focus on the palm of their own hands has been burned in my mind,” he wrote on his website. “It was one of those moments where you see something so amazingly common that it startles you into consciousness of what’s actually happening and it is impossible to forget. I see this family at the grocery store, in classrooms, on the side of the highway and in my own bed as I fall asleep next to my wife. We rest back to back on our sides coddling our small, cold, illuminated devices every night.”
Even if you are not apart of this technology-obsessed culture there is something we can all learn from these photos. 
No longer are we enjoying the precious and fleeting moments of life but we are instead cheapening them with photos or missing them all together because we are on our phones. 
How sad is this photo of the couple that just got married. This is supposed to be one of the happiest days of their life and yet they don’t look happy. The look disconnected and distracted. 
Do you remember a simpler time when we spoke to the people who were in the room with us? 
What about our children? They grow up so fast and if this is the new standard for family time then who is really raising our children to be happy and successful adults, some $1 app? 
The picture above is another example of family time being ruined by your phone. There is probably wisdom and stories that could be passed from one generation to the next, but unfortunately, no one is listening. 
Instead of focusing on our work we have decided that it is easier to distract ourselves from it. How can we take pride in our work if we weren’t present and ensuring we did a good job? 
It appears to me that this couple decided to go on a fun cabin vacation. How can you enjoy each others company or nature when you are stuck to your phone? 
After a long day at work isn’t it wonderful to know that you can come home, kick off your shoes and spend time with those that you love and work so hard to be around? Evidentally we have lost sight of this. 
In the photo above and the photo below it is almost too painful to see. Are we really just going through the motions and pretending that we are being social? 
Family time has become phone time. 
Instead of children playing outside and bonding they honestly look like zombies. 
Modern fun in the sun family vacation. 
Let us know what you felt looking at these pictures in the comments below.
Sources- Eric Pickersgill sunnyskyz.com
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