It's insane how time, place, and company affect our behaviors when it comes to technology. You wouldn't use your phone in a movie or during a funeral the same way we do when we're out and about in public. If I was at a restaurant with my friends, I wouldn't think twice before whipping out my phone and taking a flick of the display of food on the table for my Snapchat story. After all, the camera eats first.
When I'm with my parents, however, I hesitate to do this. I think part of the reason for my acting differently in these two situations is a sort of embarrassment. I know my mom will ask who I'm sending this to or my dad will make some sort of comment mocking my need to document my meal for social media. It's embarrassing how reliant I am on my phone in general, and how dependent I am on letting my 200 Snapchat viewers know what I am doing at every moment of my life.
I'm currently working on a simple video project for the media class I'm taking. The assignment is to capture the essence of an off-campus location, so I walked around George Street with my phone out capturing specific moments that seemed of interest. Creating this video is proving to be a lot different than I would've thought. Even though it should seem obvious, I was shocked that there is so much to take into consideration when creating such a project, between the content, audio, what's in the frame, and more. I know I'm an art major who primarily paints, and I'm forced to take this fundamental media class, but it should not feel this difficult to capture these locations with my camera.
Ironically, I spend a good amount of time recording and seeing the world through the camera on my phone. I'm constantly snapping videos of my friends, myself, or things I'm experiencing like sporting events or concerts. Shooting your surroundings for the purpose of art, however, is a lot different than Snapchatting your friend acting like a goof. It felt unnatural to record people going about their everyday lives and to see the world around me as art through the camera lens.
We are constantly snapping videos to send to friends or post on their social media, and often will pause moments of our lives to whip out our phone and engage with a digital world rather than the real world in front of us. We take photos for the sentiment of it, to capture these moments and save them in our own memory or to share with others. Present day fascination with social media encourages this behavior more than ever.
Sharing your life on these platforms is somewhat of an addiction. It's really hard to fight the urge to take that photo or to resist the gratification of a new Instagram post. I kind of agree with where my parents are coming from when they make fun of me in the restaurant, because it really is comical how reliant my peers and I are on our phones, cameras, and social media followers.
