The diffusion of technology has brought many changes
On the one hand, opportunities have multiplied, on the other hand, relationships have changed. In recent times, we have witnessed a strong spread of internet and media all over the world. This phenomenon has undoubtedly led to advantages and improvements in the way of communicating, since it has made it possible to overcome the barriers imposed by time and space, thus giving infinite access to sources of information. The other side of the coin is a bad or immoderate use of the Internet and the means of communication, testifying to psychopathological phenomena linked, precisely, to this bad use of the Net.
technology today
On the sidewalk, waiting for a friend to join us, my boyfriend and I, my gaze fell on a couple of friends seated around an aperitif. I started observing them, trying to understand them. Two friends who rarely see each other, who say something to each other and end up on social networks; both with their heads bent over their respective screens, over their black mirrors to stay on topic.
You may have seen the Netflix television series, Black Mirror, where each episode brings to life in a dramatic, sometimes grotesque way, what accompanies us in our daily lives: technology . It deals with all aspects of the change that has invested and overwhelmed our habits with the sound of notifications and clicks, focusing on the future but starting from the basics that are already part of the present. Thus, the television series Black Mirror, helps us to get an idea of the consequences and the objectives that new technologies can (will) achieve and all that they have already, in a certain way, accomplished. Beyond any scenario of the mind you might think, but in reality it only represents what we fear and what we know might happen.
Going back to the scene I observed in the evening, the two girls were smiling, without exchanging a single glance during the ten minutes I was there, opposite. I felt sad. Every now and then they took a sip from their cocktail glass, the plate with the food was now forgotten, perhaps first photographed and immediately posted. How many likes? How many comments?
A scene like this ten years ago would have been out of place and would have drawn the critical and indignant gazes of everyone present. Imagine a group of schoolchildren visiting Rome, sitting on the steps of the Spanish Steps; a marvel to behold, explore up and down and take a few photos. Now imagine these students composing a different scene: some are sitting and some are standing like poles, their faces glued to their latest generation cell phones, determined to take selfies, without having a constructive discussion about art and painting. story with the teacher, who may even be texting in the corner. I often see school groups like this, and it’s quite normal today, but not ten years ago,
This trip made it possible to breathe cleaner and fresher air, to sing songs together on the bus, to take group photos, to rediscover the links between students and teachers. Then there was the fun of taking out the bagged breakfast. My intention is not to be nostalgic, but I can’t help but notice the substantial differences between today and yesterday when I see these scenes.
The two young girls who browse the posts, taking refuge in an insubstantial reality, made me think of the photographs of Antoine Geiger. His Sur Fake project stages his subjects in completely normal moments, but with a particularity that shocks at first sight: the people photographed by Geiger have their faces literally sucked into their smartphones. His photos reveal the blurred boundary between normality and pathology, the area that lies outside the average, the ordinary. Geiger has a very strong message for us, a message that has definitely touched me: let’s start talking, comparing, smiling, joking, discussing, arguing with people who are part of the real world, and stop talking. to be attached to our cell phones. His invitation is therefore to remove your face from the screen.
Technology is part of our life.
The amount of technology we use during the day, the amount of water we use, in short, who really cares?
None of us care anymore. Technology is used for everything, what is there to explain? Any age, anywhere. Twenty-four hours a day, it is the “face” with which we interact the most and uninterruptedly, turning our eyes only there, while evolution has endowed us with a visual system which opens 360°. As a child I thought that one day I might try to enlarge my visual system, I wanted it bigger, because it seemed limiting. Now, I don’t know what use it would be for me, because my eyes are fixed, as now, on a screen. Whether big or small, it’s an image that takes all my attention, my time, the looks I could devote to the rest of the world made up of people like me.
