虛擬泡泡 (Virtual Bubble)

Being online in public is now commonplace, and yet, using smartphones is a weirdly personal thing. Disregarding the glimpse on someone else’s screen in a crowded train, we often have no idea how other people are using their phones.

This also means that we carry a portal to our very personal bubble with us that we can summon by the click of a button or a swipe over the glass. It’s a place to calm down, to recharge, to maybe overcome our irritation, anger, or anxiety – be it by sharing our feelings with someone we love, finding a joke that amuses us, or just by distracting us from our train of thought. We often blame “addiction” for our smartphone use, but when we are honest, we often know fairly well what kind of app, platform, or behavior will help us in a given moment. (And also when we should better stop scrolling and check in with reality again.) What is more, our smartphones often really help us regulate our emotions, even when ads and outrage make this less effective than it could be in a perfect world.

(I took the photo in a side-hall at Taipei Fine Art Museum – another wonderful place. It’s straight out of camera, I only cropped it a bit and reduced the saturation slightly.)