Recently controversy surrounded the photographing of a victim of a crime -- in progress. The subject was a man, pushed in front of a New York City subway train. And caught on camera by a bystander. Why he didn't help is the issue of the day. But the fact that a huge number of us walk around with cameras today, and take millions of photos, is the most startling side-effect of smart phones.
In
this article, Thomas Beller of The New Yorker comments on how parents spend so much effort to be with their children, only to be behind the viewfinder, capturing a moment in digital format. He recognizes that the iPhone fetish itself might contribute,
It has occurred to me that this picture-taking might in some ways be an excuse to touch and pet and hold the iPhone itself, which has a weirdly calming effect on people, as though it were an amulet or maybe a small living animal. I am guilty of all the smartphone sins—in essence, staring at the phone when you should be staring at life.
Beller asks, "Because if you are taking a picture of your children, which is to say if you are holding a camera (in the form of a phone) and snapping a picture, then are you, in that moment, looking at them?" The question, it seems is, should they be "in the moment", in the
Buddhist sense? This is the idea one should establish mindfulness in one's day-to-day life maintaining as much as possible a calm awareness of one's bodily functions, sensations or feeling), and our mental state, consisting of thoughts and perceptions.
Many see value in "lifecasting," where
every moment is recorded for posterity, or research, or some other use. An auxiliary memory. Or, perhaps the ultimate in social media, an always-on view into your personal life, like Qik, a mobile-based live video-sharing website and two-way video conferencing application that allows users to stream live video from their cell phones to the internet.
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