This morning, I saw someone on Facebook lamenting the amount of time people spend looking at their cellphones. Of course, if I had spent a bit less time on my cellphone, I wouldn’t have seen it. If they’d spent a bit less time on their cellphone, it wouldn’t have been there to see in the first place.

The irony was not lost on me.

Of course, like anything, our phones can have their downsides. And there are certainly people who are – to varying degrees – addicted to their device. And because it is always there, it is always so easy just to take a quick look, and then to begin that lifeless doomscrolling. For however long.

And yes, while you are doing that, you are missing out on everything else around you.

It’s an important thing to remember even as a photographer: one of the arguments about making memories by taking photos is that you are not living in the moment and experiencing the actual event that you are trying to preserve.

But hang on, let’s not get our knickers in a knot.

I saw this story:

It should be pointed out that Stephen Store was actually giving the lecture in question. And he wasn’t happy when he looked up from his notes and saw people on their phones:

“I saw at least dozens of you who spent the entire lecture looking at your phones. You’ve come here. You hear a talk and you can’t even pay attention to whom you’ve come to listen to. How can you pay attention to the food you eat or feel the sunlight on your skin?”  

After a moment of silence, the audience erupted into applause. After this, Shore concluded, “I think this is a good place to stop,” stood up, and left the stage.

But… but…

According to SHINE, a witness claimed that there had been a misunderstanding. A person who reportedly attended the lecture said that many people were indeed looking at their phones, but some of them were actually listening and taking notes.
“We’ve already conveyed this to Shore through staff members,” the person said. Another attendee added that they showed Shore their photos and videos of the notes everyone was taking, “and he said he felt much better about it.”

So perhaps this is just another example of society (and by “society”, I mean “older people”) needing to catch up a bit as technology outpaces the rules and etiquette we set around our daily lives. Because taking notes electronically is not an unusual thing to do, whereas when I (or Stephen, three decades before me) was studying, it was – quite literally – unheard of.

While there may be plenty of negatives about cellphone use, we shouldn’t overlook that there are many positives as well. And as part of the… ahem… “older generation”, perhaps we shouldn’t be quick so quick to judge. Because:

It would appear that, once again, reports heralding the death of civilisation at the execrable hands of technology might have been greatly exaggerated.

Remember this image?

Kids looking at their phones instead of the magnificence of Rembrandt’s ‘The Night Watch’ in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Pfft. Tsk tsk.

Clearly, to lots of folk, the photograph epitomised everything that is wrong with young people these days and their ‘addiction’ to technology. These children were being distracted by their technology to such an extent that they weren’t paying any attention to the beauty surrounding them in the real world.

Yep. Absolutely. Pfft. Tsk tsk again.

Well, until you hear the whole story, of course:

Only they weren’t. It turns out that the Rijksmuseum has an app that, among other things, contains guided tours and further information about the works on display. As part of their visit to the museum, the children, who minutes earlier had admired the art and listened attentively to explanations by expert adults, had been instructed to complete an assignment by their school teachers, using, among other things, the museum’s excellent smartphone app.

Because there is more to cellphones and technology than distraction from what we should be experiencing. Yes, “kids these days” all have cellphones and we have to deal with the parental challenges which come with them, but I bet that there’s a whole lot more information – and in a much more age-appropriate, user-friendly, engaging format – about that painting, on their devices.

My barber was telling me yesterday that she was going shopping after work so that her daughter could try out another recipe that she had found on social media. Because of what she has learned from the oft lamented (and quite reasonably so) TikTok, she’s honing her cooking skills and now has aspirations of becoming a chef. She has found her passion through her smartphone. Who knows where that might lead?

For balance: a quick note that we saw plenty of people “creating” utterly vacuous “content” for that same platform while at the Waterfront yesterday. So yeah, very much two sides to this whole thing. If civilisation – as seems ever more likely – comes crashing down around us, I’m not sure that the ability to accurately recreate a 12 second dance routine will stand society in great stead.

There’s no argument to me that this is clearly an generational thing. They’ve been around for 30 years now, but cellphones are still “new” to our generation, simply because we didn’t grow up with them. Our kids have never experienced anything else.

It is a failing of human nature to detest anything that young people do just because older people are not used to it or have trouble learning it. So I am wary of the “young people suck” school of social criticism.

Steven Pinker

So sure, let’s set boundaries and let’s communicate the rules we set for using cellphones in classrooms and lecture theatres, but also, let’s not be quite so quick to judge just because there’s a smartphone being used by a young individual (or anyone else).

Back to José Picardo at the Rijksmuseum:

I wonder whether the photo would have caused so much indignation and disapproval if it had depicted students ‘ignoring’ the masterpiece while reading a paper leaflet or museum brochure instead. 

So, I wonder, what is more likely to bring about the death of civilisation, children using smartphones to learn about art or the willful ignorance of adults who are too quick to make assumptions?

Try hard not to be that adult. No matter how much it feels like you need to make a point about how your generation was so much better than theirs is.