"Sverhsvyaz" Why do we no longer keep your eyes on the phone screen

The technologies that we menyayutProydites of any major city and you'll see a lot of people looking at screens or talking on the phone. Does this mean that we have changed? Tom Chatfield is trying to understand.

A group of people standing near the monument, and they are unaware of each other's existence. Woman with open mouth goes on a busy street, with his hand on his heart. These are just a couple of moments, was captured by photographer Josh Pullman in his new series of works titled "Somewhere else».



almost every street in every city in the world you will meet people who speak on the phone. A few decades ago there was nothing like that. And we have long been accustomed to the fact that stand next - does not mean to share experiences.

Wherever we go, we carry with them a lot far more tempting options than the place in which we currently are: we have access to friends and family, to news, to celebrities, to work and leisure, media and rumors .

So do not be surprised that people in the photos Pullman overflowing emotions.

We are free only if "freedom" - the right word to describe the stimulation of the brain and radio waves to allow distractions at any time.

Pullman himself wondering:

"If two people are on the street together, and each of them with someone on the phone, whether or not they together? And as others affected by the emotions exhibited by these people - for example, anxiety, anger or joy »?

To be human means to seek relations. Could this desire to betray us? Is it possible to become "superbound", and if so, how will this affect our future?





The emergence telefonovTelefony since the invention are engines of social upheaval and alarming. Imagine the look telephony in the 19th century: many kilometers of wires hanging on poles along the main roads. And then came the wire in every home. So sacred home for human connect to this new kind of human interaction.

«In relation to each other, we become more like clots of transparent jelly» h4> The Telegraph at the time had already given the world something wonderful: the messages transmitted at the speed of the current. But the phone is fundamentally different from the Morse code, with its dots and dashes. It was a real human voice, emerging from the ether.

"In relation to each other, we become more like clots of transparent jelly" - complained in 1897, a British writer, fearing that with the beginning of a new era of communication disappear any confidentiality.

Although early concerns about the phones may have been exaggerated, they nevertheless proved prophetic. If in the 19th century still connect the wire, then the 21st century - a connection of our minds in the vast network state. We do not drill the walls of their homes to hold the wire. We just turn on the phone. And we begin to feel the strain.

Always svyaziKak his ancestor from the 19th century, too, the mobile phone has become a status symbol of the rich and busy. It was a heavy piece of advanced technology, incredibly loudly declare themselves in public.

Over time, the mobile phone has ceased to be a symbol of luxury and became a familiar companion's life. We have included the continued availability of the modern concept of public and private space, and a man without a mobile phone began to be perceived as something extraordinary and bizarre.

Once again, history repeats itself, and reappears plenty of warnings about the negative consequences of mobile communication.

Look at the ease with which the network news spread about how 31-year-old man was treated for "Internet addiction", which manifested itself in constant use Google Glass.



These glasses - something like a smartphone, which is constantly hanging in front of his eyes. And, too, there are built-in camera, microphone, tiny screen and internet connection. Activated system either by voice or touch of a finger. Doctors found that their patients are constantly trying to include sunglasses, holding his right hand to his temple, even if the score on it was not. Glasses he used 18 hours a day, and at night he dreamed that he was looking at the world through this gadget.

This is the real story, and it's scary. A man whose life and so easy, met the temptation, who could not resist, and become dependent.

Ask yourself how often your own hand involuntarily reaches for the phone, or to a place where you usually keep it? How do you feel, hearing the sound of an incoming message or listening to the silence, when the network is not available? How far gone your own relationship with high tech?

The problem is that these questions are asked specific responses. It is safe to say one thing: technology is changing the rules of our behavior, and do it much faster than we have time to adapt to them. I spent years trying to evaluate our relationship with technology, and still believe that it is necessary to evaluate them from two perspectives.

On the one hand, in the words of the philosopher Julian Baggini, "human beings can change, but in many ways they are all the same».

On the other hand, digital technology means that my relationship with other people and the world are expanding to such a degree, which my grandparents could not imagine. I trust your memories, habits and responsibilities of a computer. I am pleased to automate everything, from itineraries to find recommended movies.

As philosophers have argued Andy Clark and David Chalmers, my mind - a kind of cooperation between the brain in my head and the instrument in my hand (this instrument can be the phone). And my "I" - is a complex system that includes both of these components.





So why should not I be glad that technology make it much easier my life? One objection is to ensure that even if you do not believe that my phone - only portable piece of my mind, you will be hard to ignore the growing body of evidence of how vulnerable human knowledge.

We are not only victims of habit. More we are being very limited and easily vanishing conscious control. We are simply to distract or to tire - to solve a few arithmetic problems or show the ad - and our strength will evaporate. And what better way to fatigue even the most disciplined thinker than a continuous buzzing gadget in his pocket?

This is the exponential impact of information technology poses the greatest challenge for all that we perceive as normal, balanced and capable of self-regulation. A pathologies enough without it. The food that can hardly be called healthy, information trash, garbage produced by the media - all these algorithms that require our attention and seek to become part of the model of the mind.

Time otdohnutStoit Do we sit "on a digital diet"? What good is to turn off the gadget, if later we will include it again?

Instead, look at the facts and begin skillfully maneuver between the brains in our bodies, and digital devices and networks.

After all, I spend my hours and minutes looking not just at one screen, and connect to the network of the human mind, the most comprehensive ever created, and each of these minds is much more powerful than the most powerful computer.

And if I so much admire, horrified and distracted, it's because other people in the network are analyzed and refract the world of information directly through me.

Julian Baggini says that there is a paradox that underlies even the most sophisticated technological manipulation:

"The methods used for working with us today is more complex than ever, but the knowledge of how they were formed, allows us to better defend themselves».

For example, I do not have to know absolutely everything about encryption and hacking in order to protect themselves from government surveillance. If I can find some good advice to help protect, I can better control their network life.

In this sense, the car - a source of undue concern. Ruinous systems and communities abound and offline. A technology simply facilitate cooperation in various fields. Disconnect completely is very difficult, but we can begin to better control it, with whom we communicate and what we ask from each other.

via www.bbc.com/future/story/20150310-are-you-over-connected