Final Project Photos and Annotation: Shot 4

Family

The picture shows a typical family relationship, mother and daughter. One of the closest relationships people can possibly have, you might think! But what the picture shows is the degradation of such a relationship by our phones. It is another everyday situation, but a more intimate one than the previous ones, because it is set at home, in the kitchen, while cooking dinner.

What we see are two individuals, both on their phones, both alone although they are together.

Think about it, would you think these two were mother and daughter, or even related at all, even the scene wasn’t set in a homely atmosphere but in a public space?

What I wanted to show with this relationship as well, is that it is not only the 'generation Z' that is suffering from the consequences of hyper-connectivity, it's not only the children, but also the parents, also those that maybe didn't grow up with all of these new technologies start to completely depend on their phones and forget about their social environment. 

This might be a bit out of context, but I nevertheless think that it is worth mentioning: 

When I looked at this shot once it was correctly edited, it immediately reminded me of a quote I read on Facebook once: 'Love your parents. We are so busy growing up, we often forget they are also growing old.' And when thinking about this in relation to the picture I feel like mobile phones just make people grow apart from each other, even family members, and while the children are growing up with their phones, the parents are growing old with them, but the one thing that connects them is that all of them are alone, on their own, trapped in their online world.