Alexis Dillon

In our current cultural state, individuals spend more time on their popular devices “communicating “ with others who feel compelled to share intimate bits of themselves on social media.

With the younger generation, social skills often suffer at the digital hands of the proclivity to only express feelings through emoticons. Adults suffer some form of disenfranchisement from their intimacy with friends and family members when the internet life takes on more and more importance than being in the present moment. How many couples have we seen and local restaurants who are each absorbed in their cell phones or tablets, having scarcely a word for each other across the table? Even sporting events suffer the same fate. People sit at one game while they watch a second on their phones. They may record the action for future viewing or share the game live with folks at home. Instead of being in the “now “, we are all focused in the “whenever”. Attention is never focused on the activity du jour as we become the ADD society. Life is lived from the confines of the small screen. The Red Chair is a stand-in for the friend in absentia. The companion who is not fully present can be replaced by an inanimate object, who is always camera-ready and always emotionally available.