Touch Me With Both Hands
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An Experiment Exploring Human Connection
In The Absence Of Smart Phones
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2023
How often is your smart phone in your hands?
Beside your bed?
On your dinner table?
Do you check for it before you leave the house?
Does it ever stay at home on a night out?
On a date? Or on vacation?
Does it go with you to work?
To the store? To the hospital?
To births, deaths and funerals?
The likelihood is we probably spend more time in the presence of our phones than any living individual. Our smart phones have become so integrated into our lives we often feel lost without them, as if a part of us is missing. An accident of losing a phone or leaving one at home by mistake can create extreme anxiety.
Our shared reliance logistically, mentally and emotionally on our smartphones today is no secret. And yet all hours access to information, social media and communication may be eroding important parts of us. Much has been discussed about our Information Age’s impact on our mental health, our relationships with others, and even our very concept of reality and the notion of truth.
We are constantly connected to the world and at the same time often disconnected from our own lives. Our immediate environments. Our bodies. Our own thoughts. Or the people right in front of us. This experiment explores the result of a week of intentional phone rationing, while embracing analog living
- with both hands.
Documented through photographs and photograms: finding a deeper immersion in nature, a greater sense of feeling present and a stronger appreciation for each other.
The Future
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As we move into future iterations of the Information Age, we will see many more changes in how we connect to each other through technology - be it the decline of traditional social media in favor of other types of interactive connection - augmented reality through new wearable devices for example or immersion into fully virtual worlds or metaverses. With commerce and power directly linked to these emerging technologies we may find ourselves even more lost in distant worlds.
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Is it important to have the power and ability to stay present in our daily lives?
To ensure we do not lose touch of those right in front of us, or the living world right upon our doorstep, or the inner world of our own undisturbed thoughts?
Practicing living in our times without digital connection may be a vital component to retaining our humanity as we race towards an ever connected
yet disconnected world.
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