trueatfirstlight

"All this technology is making us anti-social"
Well as if we haven't all heard this at least once in our lives. I realise this topic has already been covered by countless journalists, but that doesn't mean that there isn't room for just one more - and I have a slightly different take on this to those that I have read around the subject.

It's not abnormal to hate change. This photo is powerful and resembles everything I love about the 20th century. This photograph is a catalyst for questions. Why do we choose to hone in on the fact that they aren't speaking to each other during the time this photo was taken? It is not the technology's fault that these people aren't speaking, rather, the people are genuinely interested in what they are reading and are therefore so immersed that they feel no need to converse.

Needless to say, it is also very possible that immediately after this photo was taken, one or two may have turned to each other to comment on what they had just read, but more to the point: what are they reading? We assume it is all the same newspaper, that they are all of the same background, class etc. These people are all on different journeys, literally speaking, and every single one of these people reading something that a journalist has documented for them will interpret their words differently.

This is a time when reading a newspaper was the equivalent of reading news on your iPad or smart phone, and simply because the form in which we do so has changed, we jump to the conclusion that it is a bad thing. This photo is proof that anti social doesn't exist. This is just a different time of socialising. The readers are socialising with the journalists in part, they are reading and accepting or denying the information they are provided with, which they can then share with the other people they meet after they get off the train, on the train or indeed in several years.