There is a powerful article composed of mostly images circling the Internet that you may or may not have seen. I personally came across this article about a week ago and it struck me pretty hard, inspiring me to write this article. The article is called “ A Photographer is Removing Phones From His Images to Show How Addicted We Are ,” from the Canadian site Notable. For those of you who have not seen it, the link is at the end of this article and I advise you to look at it after. In summary, photographer Eric Pickersgill took photos of people doing daily activities with their loved ones. These photos would normally consist of cellular devices being used, which would look nothing out of the ordinary to the viewer. However, Pickersgill has decided to take the images without the technology, giving the viewer a major reality check. The photos seem to look horribly emotionless and unnatural. It really enlightens the viewers how obsessed we are with the technology world, and how distant we are to those who really matter and are right next to us.

The article and images give the viewers the perspective of how the technology-obsessed world we live in is resulting in such a distant personal world. This is more than true, as everyone in this century would agree upon. Today the average person cannot stay off their phone for more than five minutes. Even when we are with the people we truly care about, we worry more about our texts and social media, than sitting down and truly enjoying their presence. Next time you are out to dinner or at a party, look around you and see how many people are on their devices rather than enjoying the moment with the people around them. By being on our phone, whether we think we can multitask or not, we truly miss out on what is right in front of us. Checking our phones every five minutes interrupts those deep, eye-contact-filled conversations that really mean a lot after. Making sure you refresh your Instagram every five minutes really prevents those laughs that make your core hurt after. The connection one has with people is suffering just from that one piece of technology.

We know more about how our followers are doing than how our best friend or significant other is feeling that day. In fact we may only know how our best friend or significant other is feeling by what they posted that morning. We only remember ones birthday not because we learned it through our relationship, but because Facebook is reminding us it is today. We learned that our family friend got engaged (when we didn’t even know they had a boyfriend) by the Instagram post, rather than a face-to-face celebratory conversation. We are forcing our relationships to be a part of our technology obsession, instead of separating the two. This is how the distance is ever-growing and at a scary rapid rate.

Technology truly makes it so easy to be so distant, even when we are not aware of it happening. If we continue to be so technology obsessed who knows where out personal relationships & friendships will be in the future. However, this is not how it has to be. YOU can turn this elongating distance around, and begin to close the gap. The solution is simple: Put the phone down from time to time. Next time you are with your friends at lunch, forget texting for the half hour and have that deep conversation or laugh. When your significant other wants to chill out on the couch, talk to them instead of scroll on Twitter. Just by doing this, you will feel closer to your loved ones and be so thankful in the end. There will always be time for social media and texting, but not always time for these moments. Those connections are what you will remember in the future, not who was texting you at that time.

So when you're done reading this, probably on your phone, put it down and go start your journey in closing the distance. Start a conversation or do something fun with someone and see what you learn about him or her. It will truly surprise you how much you normally miss out on.