The other day when I was out for dinner with my friends, there was a lull in conversation and as if in prefect synchronization, out whipped the cell phones from everyone’s bag and pockets including yours truly.
What is this dire need to check the messages the instant we receive them? Or the insatiable urge to scroll through the Facebook feed for the umpteenth time? Doctor internet tells me that cellphone addiction is actually a real behavioural problem known to cause ‘distress in one’s life’ (and in case you’re wondering; yes, I did look that up on my cellphone).
Eric Pickersgill is a photographer who done a project titled Removed to address this problem. These are your run-of-the-mill everyday life photographs except that the electronic devices seem to have magically vanished. The resulting photos show how dependent we have become on these devices which seems to disengage us from the people around us.
Here are some of his works from the project Removed