By MELISSA WELLHAM
Can you see yourself in this video? Maybe you can see your partner, or mother, or brother. Maybe you can see your friends. Maybe you can see, well, almost anyone in the first world.
Social media, and our ability to constantly communicate with one another, can be really useful. And convenient. And efficient. But it’s also incredibly addictive. Most of us have probably felt a thrill when we receive a new text message, or felt chuffed when a new profile picture receives double-digits likes on Facebook, or mulled over which filter to apply to an Instagram photo to make it look even better than the real thing.
But even with so much digital communication, a lot of us are feeling less connected than ever before.
That’s the feeling, the feeling of social media addiction, that Charlene deGuzman, the writer and actress in I Forgot My Phone, was trying to capture with her short film. The video has been viewed over 18,000,000 times.
Top Comments
What a fantastic video! Smartphones and other portable devices have quickly become an everyday item for many (first world) people, so it's often easy to forget that they can disconnect us from what's going on in the moment. It's really important to be aware of it though, and I think this video does that so well.
I have been thinking about this ALOT lately and have seen example of living through your phone EVERYWHERE. Two examples spring to mind: I recently had the pleasure of going to the P!nk concert and standing in front of me was a group of 4 girls that videoed the whole thing on their smartphones... instead of watching it... I asked myself - what are they going to do with the footage..? its blurry, we are far away from the stage.. WHY?? Then my daughter, who is 12, went on a sleepover and all of the other girls there spent the evening messaging their other friends on a messaging app (that my daughter isn't allowed to have) instead of talking. I for one am trying to change my habits.. restricting my time on FB, not always checking my phone... not just for me... but to show my kids how to live and experience things - not just through the frame of a smartphone.