#Illusion, #escape, #volitionalmobility, #archive, #smartphones, #virtualreality, #control, #society, #internet, #screen, #stare, #image, #focus, #bored, #freedom, #user, #Instagram, #body
In almost any social situation now, people tend to reach for their [smartphones]. However, I’m questioning if this has just become a force of habit, or if this systematic reaching for a phone is actually the result of it’s [illusion] of [escape] and [volitional mobility] (and then its subsequent addictive quality)?
Even when I’m hanging out with my friends, I often find myself looking at my phone. As I walk around campus, I see almost everyone’s head tilted down to scan their [smartphone] [screen]s. [Smartphones] and the [internet] give the user the [illusion] of [volitional mobility], as Tara McPherson suggests in “Reload: Liveness, Mobility, and The Web”. [Volitional mobility] is the [user]’s ability to choose how they navigate the internet, and it instills a sense of ondemand “liveness”. This [volitional mobility] can become addicting, as [user]s have the sensation of moving forward to achieve or find something new on the web. However, this [volitional mobility] is merely an [illusion]; [user]s are simply digging through an endless [internet] [archive] while physically remaining in a fixed position. In addition, people often go on their [smartphones] due to a fear of “missing out” on the “now”, that is: daily news, a friend’s [Instagram] post, or emails and/or text messages. This need and desire to always be in the “know” is never ending, as the [internet]’s [archive] is limitless, and contributes to people using their [smartphones] at staggering amounts. Due to this fear of “missing out”, we pick up our phones, but as a result, we actually end up missing out on our real lives and [escap]ing in the [virtual “reality”] afforded to use via the [internet].
In this process of reaching for my phone and then ultimately scanning it, I automatically devote all of my energy and attention towards a [screen], rather than a person and a conversation. A shift in energy from physical and real-life interactions and towards [screen]s seems to be the ongoing trend with the prevalence of [smartphones] and technology in everyday life. Now, people will text each other instead of talking, even if they are physically in the same room. In addition, the feeling of [control] and [volitional mobility] that the [internet] grants eventually manifests into a feeling of relief and [escape]. For example, even if your life is spinning out of [control], with your bad job or your loads of school work, [smartphones] have become sources of [escape] from “real-life” problems. As Lev Manovich states within The Screen and the User, splitting [reality]“simultaneously doubles the viewing [subject] who now exists in two spaces: the familiar physical space of his/her real body and the [virtual] space of an [image] within the [screen]” (106). This split in [reality] allows the [user] to simultaneously exist in their physical [body] and the virtual space of the screen. When encompassed by the [screen], people can forget about their physical lives and, even if only for a few minutes, vanish into the world of the [screen].
Although this feeling of choice and [freedom] prevails when one scans their phone, Manovich suggests that the “increasing mobility and the miniaturization of communication devices” simply allows us as [user]s to “carry our prisons with us” (113). Ultimately, we are all [subjects] that carry these ideological apparatuses, or [smartphones], that provide us with feelings of [control] and [escape], even if these sensations are, in actuality, mere [illusions].
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