Our lives are being jailed into our phones’ cameras

[redbell]

Yes, sadly, that’s the hard reality we encounter everyday, everywhere..

In today’s “supposed” modern life, almost everybody is being forced, by himself, to be locked into his phone’s camera. At any moment he picks the camera to take a shot, its not a problem, but when he/she continuously post on social media and keeps refreshing to see the number of impressions they got, that’s a problem. Being happy and feeling valued.. that’s a disaster.

IG, TK, Snapchat (and to some extent, FB -in some parts of the world-) are mostly based on people sharing their private lives to the public which does hurt everybody -alike-. Makers are losing their private lives in exchange for money and exposure, they suffer from countless psychological and mental issues by trying to be at their best just for their audience, even if it is FAKE and is far from being the reality. On the other hand, Fans are dying of jealousy of their “idols/influencers”, resulting in self-underestimation, self-hate and.. I just can’t believe it, “suicide-thoughts”, Yes. People, or more precisely, teen girls, had even thought to put an end to their lives.. why? Just to end the suffering inside because.. you know the rest.

And you know what? The newcomer, BeReal. While it appears it has a plan to fix some [or all] of the above-mentioned issues, it still has, IMHO, a fundamental issue, which is, keeping people taking photos of themselves [at random times in the day without preparing] and publish them publicly, or privately. Again, this is the core idea all the platforms are based on, so, this rewind us to the title above.

On the other part of the equation are “Phone Makers”, maybe the lion’s share of their keynotes is dedicated to the camera, the top-of-the-show. AI, MegaPixels, Stabilization.. are some of the buzz words being “stressed” during the show. “The most advanced camera system ever in an iPhone”, “S23 Ultra is rumored to have an unbelievable 200MP.. you count it..”

It’s like our lives are being reduced to a 1cm-square device! Life is being minified as “life.min.cam”

Maybe I am stuck in a “prehistoric life”, thus I’m unable to understand how all this is being mainstream.

Maybe my brain’s hardware is outdated in a way it couldn’t upgrade the soft inside to the latest stable release of modern life.

Maybe I am completely wrong about this.. like driving your car, by mistake, in the opposite direction while in a new city.

I just wanted to share some words..

[badpun]

> In today’s “supposed” modern life, almost everybody is being forced, by himself, to be locked into his phone’s camera. At any moment he picks the camera to take a shot, its not a problem, but when he/she continuously post on social media and keeps refreshing to see the number of impressions they got, that’s a problem. Being happy and feeling valued.. that’s a disaster.

"Almost everybody" is clearly overblown. Out of dozens people I know, two are like that. I'm guessing most aren't even on social media.

[redbell → badpun]

Maybe I was wrong in phrasing it as I intended, but I meant that "almost everybody" is obsessed with taking photos of himself/friends especially in special moments but not necessarily post then on social media.

[badpun → redbell]

Yeah, I agree, that's pretty common. I never do that, but I see a lot of people around me do. I guess photo taking is an easy way to store a nice memory that you can return to later and relive some of the positive emotions. It's not bad if you don't overdo it.

[soylentcola → badpun]

I'm mostly like this. I take a few pics of cool things on vacation/at an event/something I built/etc. Sometimes with my camera. Sometimes with my phone.

I email them to my parents who don't live nearby. I share some of them with friends who I don't always see. I send silly pics to my gf who is currently working out of state so we can stay in touch and goof around.

I don't publish them to social sites. The closest is maybe sharing relevant pics in group chats with various friends/family. More often than not, I forget to take photos and then feel a little bit bummed out because I actually enjoy photography and only do it sporadically.

[Bender]

I have yet to own a smart phone. Thus far lacking a smart phone has not really impacted me beyond trying to call an unknown number 411 no longer looks up business by category as so many people have smart phones, or at least that has been my experience. I would like to get one but Fairphone is not available in the US and I can not find a US equivalent to it. I should probably get something soon as Verizon is about to kill off the network my old pre-paid flip phone uses. Even if I do find a phone that meets my requirements supporting unrestricted linux/root by default, removable battery, etc... I will use it for voice, texting and maybe a web browser to look up business numbers. I will never install SPA's or take pictures with the phone unless I have full control of the OS and firmware, especially the baseband modem and GPS.

This is just my opinion but I do not believe I could be jailed into a phone. I spent more than half my life on call and find myself being allergic to phones and pagers now. Even my little flip-phone sleeps in a different room than me.

[toomuchtodo → Bender]

Have you tried the Nokia 225?

[Bender → toomuchtodo]

Removable battery and nice standby time. Nice. I see some unlocked versions on Amazon. Lots of mixed reviews.

[temp2022account]

I understand the angst, and that's why I don't engage with social platforms. The exception is when friends text me to go look at their posts, during which time I make sure to click every ad I see to increase cost to the organizations responsible for wasting my time.

My phone's camera stores photos on my phone and when its plugged in a python script syncs photos to my laptop and deletes non-starred phone photos older than 30 days.

Future generations will have a set of media ethics similar to the geneva convention to prevent wasting everyone's time; see https://www.nohello.com/ et al.

[FWKevents]

I am a professional photographer who began taking photos in the days of film. For point of reference, it was 2007 when I switched from shooting film to shooting digital. When shooting film, I would carefully meter the scene, make sure the proper lens was on the camera, compose, shoot, take the completed roll of film to the lab and.....wait. One week to ten days.

Today's cameras embedded into this mini-computer/talisman we carry around, that we insist on calling a "phone", are incredible marvels of modern engineering. So incredible, that people are tempted to document everything through them, until it seems like "me" is the image that is projected to the world, not the identity you share with intimates.

You're not limited to reducing the complicated, dynamic aspects that define "you" to the flat, small image that comes from the camera that comes with your phone. You're welcome to pick up a Nikon or a Canon camera at any time, and see how much richer life looks through its horizontal frame that adheres to the golden ratio.

[DerekBickerton]

I haven't posted one selfie, ever, and I've been online since the nineties. I'm more concerned about showing up in other people's photos though. And you can't avoid that. You could ask politely not to be included in a photo, but that could be controversial, and I'm not about to go all Snowden on people and proclaim I have digital privacy rights which are un-enforced and the only way to avoid that is to be non-compliant in the various data-mining operations of Google et al. and have a 'rant'. Most of the time I waive my rights and be silent since it's more social and accepted.

[redbell → DerekBickerton]

> I'm more concerned about showing up in other people's photos though

Same to me, and now, almost of all my friends/relatives knew I'm uncomfortable appearing in photos which I don't know what platform they may end up on.

[bayraktar]

You know, it's pretty easy to just ditch social media entirely, and to essentially forget about your smartphone as well (beyond the bare essentials that we're kind of forced to use them for these days), actually.

[rolph]

the only device i own that has a camera is my camera.

if it isnt primarily a camera i destroy or remove the camera within minutes after purchase, often to the shock of the salesperson.

[nahnah01]

> Maybe I am stuck in a “prehistoric life”

I think might be too. (31yo) I just pray for a phone with a physical keyboard that would be up to date, support mail, slack etc.