10 Photos That Show Your Phone is Ruining Your Life

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21 March, 2018

10 Photos That Show Your Phone is Ruining Your Life

Shortly after photographer Eric Pickersgill got married last year, he took an artist residency far from his home and new wife. While he was away, he noticed the people around him, despite having those they loved nearby, were choosing to spend more time on their phones than with each other. And so the photo series "Removed" was born.

Pickersgill began staging scenes of people in everyday situations where they'd usually be on their phone — then he removed the actual phones from the pictures. That makes the image much more striking: "The absence of the device points to it more so than if it were present. The device being removed also means that the person in the photograph must perform this gesture," Pickersgill explained to Cosmopolitan.com via email.

Staging the photographs helped Pickersgill realize the depth of his phone addiction as well. "I do think you need to be aware of how long you are spending on your device and be deliberate about it," he wrote. "I just personally need the reminder to put it down because it is an addiction." He's making a conscious effort to be more present now that he's home with his wife and communicating with people a lot more online since the launch of "Removed."

The entire series is a chilling reminder that phones have become human appendages and that the Internet is slowly killing us all. See some of the striking pictures below:

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