Since our communication happens to a great extent in the digital, what could make headlines today? Well, practically everything with buzz feed and other sites and blogs we can constantly get the most ‘important’ news. Right? Especially, since we are available 24/7. But just how bizarre can they get?

In the 21st century, apparently there shouldn´t be any boredom, any leisure time unused, since you can always simply grab your phone and enjoy your free time with a game, sent a snap chat, reinvent yourself on Instagram or keep working for the real workaholics under us. Well, we haven´t apparently all caught up to the technological advances of our century, have we?


What exactly is he doing there? Or better to ask not doing as a matter of fact? Posted millions of times as a gag on social media and news and entertainment websites asking question upon question about the simple fact that a man waiting for a train might not be interested in the contents of his smartphone. Reading through the comment feed of 9gag alone user comment along the lines: Is his battery out? Looking creepy! Lost Phone? And yes, of course, there are controversies but they can vary greatly.

But not everyone seems to have an intrinsic problem interpreting a man in a train station as more than an awkward person or simply someone who unfortunately is out of battery or a cell phone.

Of course talking about wonders might be a bit of a step in a train station but culturally it seems through the discussion as well as the headlines topic more accepted to be on a phone 24/7 looking at an interface that does the communication for you than actually talking to others face to face. It even seems a form of avoidance instead of just a convenient technology to overcome distance.

There are social implications in the age of the mobile phone, changing social communication into impersonal relations, and the interfaces allow control to be distributed by making it invisible. We become part of controlling ourselves through our phones, computers and other electronic devices hidden behind an interface telling us to simplify our daily routines, the way we work, social interaction and giving us access to tools that help us live our lives. But they also transform what is socially acceptable and what is not, how social interaction should be in the 21st century.

So are you watching your smartphone or better do you think you watch the real world through Instagram or do you prefer to engage in human interaction? Do you avoid a conversation sticking to the known reality of your smartphone or do you prefer to discover what´s going on around you?

If you are an absolute phone junkie, there is still hope for you. Besides the hype about healthy food, and a sustainable lifestyle another trend seems to be a stronger focus on human, social interaction.


Digital Detox Camps work just like the pile of smartphones on the bar table, when teenagers meet to socialise, trying to ban the What’s App conversations, but brings it to a new level. The company offers a multitude of camps for corporate programs as well as the usual cyber addict. Society seems to come to a point where we rethink social interaction and our connection to our smartphone, tablet and computer. Realising that our communication has changed rapidly and extremely in a short amount of time leaving us to cope with the hidden consequences like new #perceptions what it means to be social and what is accepted in society. The Detox Camp, borrowing from addictions usually seen as socially destructive, could be an indicator that there are adjustments needed to how we #participate in a culture influenced to such an extent by the digital realm and the graphical user interface we seem to talk to more than our fellow human beings.