YOUR-SAY

LIVE THE MOMENT OR HAVE A MEMORY?

Last week, the American newspaper “The Boston Globe” published a photo of the photographer John Banding. In that photo you can see a group of people behind a fence photographing and recording with their smartphones the actors that were presenting the movie “Black Mass”. Then, you can also see a grown woman in the first line watching the same thing not through her mobile phone, but through her eyes.

A lot of people gave their opinion about it, showing their different points of view but, a part from that, I want to show you my own opinion.

First of all, I think it’s obvious that we’re so addicted to the mobile phone, the technology, the social networks… And we know it. We became so addicted, that if our mobile phone runs out of battery it’s such a big deal. A big, big deal. Or, if simply we forget our phones at home, we start “missing the phone”, especially when everyone starts using it and you can’t, so you start feeling strange and weird, out of place.

It’s like we depend on our phone. No, I think it’s better to say that the phone became a part of us. He follows everywhere you go, like your shadow. The difference is that your shadow stops following you in the dark; the phone doesn’t. And if one day you don’t bring your mobile phone with you, somebody else will do, and maybe you will end up playing games on your friend’s phone of both of you watching videos through it. It’s like a course. Also, the mobile phone is method of salvation. I mean, for example, if you are waiting for somebody, and you don’t know what to do, you take your phone and you start checking anything, even if it’s not important, just to not feel like a lonely person. Or, another example, if you are in the bus, you do the same thing I said before. Talking about that last thing, call me a freak but I saw a lot of films when the main characters met or fall in love in the bus, or in the underground, or even in the street waiting for something or someone. They just look each other and… love. But now, we can’t do this. We are always watching our phones; we don’t look at each other. We don’t look at strangers anymore. We don’t watch the birds flying in the sky as we walk. We just head down and watch our phones. A screen. 

Of course I know that NOT EVERYONE is like this. But I’m talking for the most of the people (especially the teenagers and the young people) who do this.

So, talking about the photo, I think it shows what our generation is like nowadays. As I said before, we’re always using our smartphones. A lot of people criticized that these people in the photo are not enjoying the moment as much as the elder woman, and I’m totally agree with them. Clearly, if you are recording something you have to be attending to the phone, making sure you’re recording it well and all these things. So, you’re not enjoying the moment as much as the other people (that aren’t using their cameras or phones) do. For example, I play the guitar, so three or four times a year I do concerts. My mother always wants to recorder it, to have a memory, but every time she ends up just recording a part of it, because she says that she wants to enjoy the concert and the music, and if she is recording, she can’t enjoy as much. And she feels the difference between recording, or just enjoying of the moment.

Well, recording or taking photos of the moment have good parts too: you have a memory for the rest of your life (unless you lose the photo or the video), and you can show this to anyone you want.

With this, you have the sensation of having been there, right? I mean, it’s normal, you have been there. But, if you think about it, and let’s suppose that you where recording all the time, it’s like you haven’t been there. Well, I really don’t know how to say that. I mean, when you were recording, you were watching it through your phone, so you technically never have seen it in your own eyes, just through a video. Because even the moment you were watching it for the first time, you were doing it through your phone. Yes, I know this is quite confusing, but I hope you understand me.

Basically, recording videos or making photos has advantages and disadvantages, but, in the end, do you think it’s worth it recording it, but not enjoying the moment? In my opinion, I think that nothing is worth than enjoying the moment and living the moment (quite hipster, right?). You only have the opportunity to see what you’re seeing once, so we have to just enjoy. Although I recognize that it’s cool to have a memory of a cool thing for forever. Obviously, I have a lot of photos or videos of different moments of my life that I love and I’m happy that I have them.

So, in the end, I think that we have to do both things: enjoy the moment and make photos and record things. Just a bit of all, because each thing has advantages and disadvantages. We don’t have to bring it to the extreme like some people do.

I know I haven’t talked much about the photo in particular, but the photo was just a thing to introduce what I wanted to talk about.

I let you a video that shows our addiction to the phone that I've found very interesting "I forgot my phone"

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OINa46HeWg8