Author: Michaelena Ferraro

My project is going to center around the umbrella effect of cell phone use on today’s society, specifically in teenagers. Nowadays we see people so attached to their phones that they miss out on many important aspects of life and human interaction. We have grown so used to the comfort of that warm feeling of our phone in our hand or close to our body. We almost feel out of the ordinary when we do not have it. Everyone has experienced that moment in time when you are in a room full of people, or walking somewhere in a crowd and we cannot do so without looking at our phones or simulating a phone call that that we know is not really there. Why is it that when we feel awkward instead of interacting with each other we look straight to our technology? I wanted to showcase how alone our technology really makes us. We think we are making connections but those technological connections do not supply us with the human interaction we actually need to be happy. We are replacing the feeling of happiness with things like social media and texting. We cannot make proper connections this way, and the goal of my project is to give us all a rude awakening in just how alone in this world we are when we rely solely on technology. 

The documentary is a portion of the project that takes the real lives of teenagers and brings them under a microscope. It is an interview that forced subjects to really think about how much time in a day is allocated to phone use, what they are missing out on because of this, and if they can understand that this is the equivalent of an addiction. This digital component will force viewers to take a step back and think about their own phone use. This is a social issue that is causing us to lose out on the world around us and forget what is important.

I further represent these issues in my project through photographs. I wanted to embody a sort of realist mindset, and capture a moment in time. I will capture different moments in a subjects life where technology takes precedence over human interaction. Every picture will be a distinct moment in time that we will be able to watch the world going on around the subject and nothing else matters except that of what is on our phones. We don’t even notice that every second we choose the adrenaline rush that our devices give us over human interaction, we are letting life pass us by bit by bit. I want each picture to showcase how disconnected we are from the world because of technology alone. We will see how much we lose while we truly think are under the impression that we are gaining. I would hope this album would serve as another realization for readers, allowing each line to cause intense thought that makes you question normal actions in your everyday life. 

The faint sound of the notification bell is almost like a shot of adrenaline shooting into your veins like a drug. We can’t live without that satisfying feeling of that technological heroine. Will we ever be able to put down the phone? The only connections we make on a daily basis are the ones we make to whatever network we are connecting to. What is the wifi password? That is the first question we ask at the threshold of a new friends door. Headphones? They are pure protection from the sounds of the outside world, denial to face any sort of human interaction.

Why? Why is it that our bodies are built like a program. We can’t force ourselves to connect on a deeper level, we believe the deepest level is that of the layers of the screen. What about the layers to a person? There is no layers to a screen, it is one two dimensional level that will send us into a spiraling hell. There is no way out of it once it begins. The trouble now a days is it is starting in the youngest of our society. Instead of counting their numbers (1,2,3), they are counting their comments and likes on social media.

How long can we go without the satisfying glow of the screen we hold so close? A screen that means the world to us, anything and everything feels right when we have a device is our hand. We can’t even see the disconnection, we are connected to the wifi, but are we connected to each other? How do we know if we are allowing all of our memories to become a blur. One that cannot be cleared because all we can remember is the faint glow of our screens. However, our memories are deferred because we can’t remember exactly what lies beyond that screen. Who we were with, what we were doing, and the connections we were making. Life goes on around us, sometimes even in circles, we don’t even realize what we are missing out on and how many memories become lost in the cloud.

Our life is indeed a sequence of numbers. That move quickly. We look down for hours on end not even recognizing that there are things that are more important moving right in front of us. We cannot break out of this sequence as it is certainly an addiction. Just as any other drug addiction, withdrawal will come fast the second we try to break this cycle. We cannot even imagine life without this device we hold so close. How could we ever let go from this sequence that controls our each and every move. What do we do in this situation? There may never be a simple answer to this question.

Technology and everything it encompasses is similar to the clouds over our head. The same way we can collect and store all the information we feel we need in a technological cloud, is the same way the clouds in the skye collect and store precipitation. When will it all come out and fall apart? There is no way for us to know, there is no weather forecast for technology. We are simply loading these clouds with all the information we see fit, will this be eternally satisfying? Instead of making memories we can remember ourselves, we are taking pictures we believe will last us a lifetime and entrusting them in some “cloud” that is not at all tangible.

We can continue on in this cycle for however long we see fit. The side effects of this addicting drug have already started the show through. We can no longer make the same connections, we are missing the daily occurrences that should come so naturally. We let life pass us by while we place everything of importance to us in the cloud that is constantly glooming over our head. Teenagers and people close in age to these subjects were born into this world. They know no other ways, so do we really feel like we are doing anything wrong? When we are born into a cycle and born already pre-addicted to a drug like technology, it is impossible to break. We were trained as young children to utilize this kind of technology (ie. cellphones) for everything. We can see clearly that without this addiction our lives would be completely different. Can we even imagine a world where this would not be the societal normality?

When we take a step back and try to make a mental photo album of all the memories we were not able to capture on with our cellphones, what can we actually remember? The answer to this may be little to nothing. We can no longer put full memories into place to make a big picture. We can only remember bits and pieces, the things that do not seem to hold much importance, and in this exact moment it becomes, A Memory Deferred..