The Negative Impact of Smartphones, Technology, and Social Media on Photography

Everywhere you go, and everywhere you look, it seems as if everyone has a smartphone in their hands these days. Most cell phone carriers don't even offer phone plans without smart phone packages today! It is crazy to see how much the life we live has changed from how it was 10 years ago, when the only handheld cell phone one could own was a flip phone with not even a camera. Smartphones have made it difficult to see the world for what it really is.

Taking photos on phones has evolved immensely over the last few years. The famous "selfie" pose, where someone holds their phone up themselves to take a photo of them has taken over social media, and applications such as Facebook and Instagram make it easier than ever to upload your photos. Because of this, digital camera sales have gone down drastically over the last three years, and smart phone brands are working higher than ever to compete with each other as to who can provide the better camera and bigger screen. It's hard to think that someone would put aside their smartphone and take digital camera photos, isn't it?

Our perspectives of the world around us are most influenced by the media we are presented with to see on a daily basis. Good or bad, our opinions about a culture or country can easily be persuaded and shifted due to what we see or hear on the news. By the firing of photojournalists at the Chicago Sun Times, and having journalists take their own photos on smartphones, I think it will really impact the global awareness people have negatively.

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One of the great things about having your smartphone in your hand at all times is that you are in a great position to capture a perfect moment happening.

Instead of looking for something to capture, one is presented with an opportunity to be ready for the unimaginable. When street fights break out, people instantly slide their finger on their smartphone and are able to capture a fairly clear and understandable video or photograph. Not a single extravagant moment goes by these days without us readily being able to capture it on our smartphones! I myself am guilty of this motion, as well. By journalists being able to do the same thing, they may be capturing more negative than positive news.

For example, a teenager could be trying to do something good by offering some food or money to a homeless man. Think about it. Visualize it in your mind. It seems to be a beautiful and touching moment for anyone experiencing it or witnessing it. Now, if a photojournalist were to capture this moment, they would capture the compassion and beauty in the gesture. One another note, if a journalist with a smartphone were to quickly capture the moment for "digitally savvy” reasons, the photo may portray a man begging for food or money and an innocent teenager giving it to the man.

Therefore, someone who is not aware of the situation, such as someone from another foreign country, might interpret this as a way of life for some Americans! This completely justifies the entire “photographic” truth being hidden within, which is more easily shown through a structured and well taken photograph with a photojournalist! When using a smartphone to quickly capture an image for the sake of efficiency, the true meaning of the photograph isn't depicted as truth and is more or less concealed. This example sheds a lot of light on the entire situation with the Chicago Sun Times for me, and I wish that they had put more consideration into the whole situation.

In a Ted Talk by David Griffin called “How Photography Connects Us," he discusses a traumatizing memory he has of his son and himself from years back. He talks about the memory as if it just happened, and it seems to still be very vivid and clear in his mind. He can go back to the memory at any time and have the same memory, knowledge, and visualization of it. Similarly, one can connect the same way to a photograph.

Using my example of the homeless man and the teenager offering him food, having had the photo taken by a photojournalist to emphasize the emotion in the photograph would give the photograph a whole new meaning, because truth is depicted in it, just as the truth of Griffin's son almost drowning under a riptide came to be making the entire situation so memorable for him.

If the photo of the homeless man was taken on a smartphone to be put right on social media for the world to see, it would be just like everything else that is displayed and put on blast for us to see on a daily basis through Twitter and the news; meaningless and full of questions and lies. We are so used to being bombarded by seeing news on social media and small video clips taken on smartphones that the entire concept of viewing visual media on social media has become a usual and casual concept, where we are consumed by opinions and don't have much to argue when we try to make our own.

All in all, I believe that technology, smartphones, and social media have slowly started to destroy the truth that is found in photographs. Smartphones have made it problematic for people to look deeper than what they see on social media and the news because they are so inclined to easily believing what is in front of them.

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