Blake Randall Photography
Time Well Spent
Smartphones are definitely a mixed blessing. Among many other things, I enjoy the fact that I can see what all of my friends and family are up to, see all the photographs from my favorite photographers at any given moment or that I can share my photos with thousands of people. However on the downside our phones have become analogous to a slot machine. Every time we check our emails, our social media or scroll a news feed or refresh we become more addicted and everytime we get distracted it takes an average of 23 min to refocus. Ever notice how you have to sometimes refresh instagram to get your notification? This triggers the same part in our brain as pulling the lever on a slot machine. All the social media giants do this on purpose because the more time we spend on their apps or websites the more advertising money they make and the more information they can gather to sell to other companies who would like to influence our behavior even more. There are many apps out there that attempt to block distractions so we can focus but companies like facebook are constantly working hard to thwart anything that would allow you to spend time on what’s really important. I find this to be fairly egregious. So it comes to the decision of being distracted or missing out and I am definitely leaning towards missing out.
Anyways, I guess this is a long winded way of apologizing for and explaining my terrible presence on social media and thanking all of the people who took the time to look at my photos. Here is an older shot of a lovely evening spent with my girlfriend at Assiniboine.
Time Well Spent
Smartphones are definitely a mixed blessing. Among many other things, I enjoy the fact that I can see what all of my friends and family are up to, see all the photographs from my favorite photographers at any given moment or that I can share my photos with thousands of people. However on the downside our phones have become analogous to a slot machine. Every time we check our emails, our social media or scroll a news feed or refresh we become more addicted and everytime we get distracted it takes an average of 23 min to refocus. Ever notice how you have to sometimes refresh instagram to get your notification? This triggers the same part in our brain as pulling the lever on a slot machine. All the social media giants do this on purpose because the more time we spend on their apps or websites the more advertising money they make and the more information they can gather to sell to other companies who would like to influence our behavior even more. There are many apps out there that attempt to block distractions so we can focus but companies like facebook are constantly working hard to thwart anything that would allow you to spend time on what’s really important. I find this to be fairly egregious. So it comes to the decision of being distracted or missing out and I am definitely leaning towards missing out.
Anyways, I guess this is a long winded way of apologizing for and explaining my terrible presence on social media and thanking all of the people who took the time to look at my photos. Here is an older shot of a lovely evening spent with my girlfriend at Assiniboine.