digital Detox

bulevardi said:
In a "digital detox", there's aswel a difference between shooting analog/digital and being continuously offline/online.


I'm currently doing some kind of social media detox this month, where I tried to abandon Instagram (and TikTok) as I was spending too much time on these platforms.
I abandoned it for almost 4 weeks now, and the first days I noticed my brain started to push me trying to get me back.
A bit like when I stop drinking coffee for more then a day I start getting headache.
Some kind of "fear of missing out", while at the same time realizing I actually don't miss 90% of the the superficial things happening there.

I went to a cool event in the last weeks, where I made a picture and thought: "oh no, now I can't share it in my stories".... mm, and sharing it later in March is totally irrelevant. So I sent it just to a couple of people who were interested in that event via Whatsapp, because I came to think that 'happiness is only real when shared'.

I was commuting to work this week and saw a wonderful sunrise. My habit is to get my phone and instantly capture the moment.
But now I thought... well... why would I take this picture if I'm not going to share it with anyone? Or should I wait until next month and post it after my detox? That's ridiculous.
So why would I take a picture... (ok yes I could show it at work to my coworkers, or at home to my family), but I'm not planning to spread it on socials.
It is like a tree that falls down in a forest and there's no one to hear it... ok there's the sound, but sames goes for: there's this picture, and you don't have the audience to see it.

Let's splits us in 2 groups of people here.
Those who want to show their work to the world, and the others who don't feel the need to.


The first group does it because they enjoy appreciation, feedback or interation, or they have an unstoppable urge to share it.
Quoting Christopher McCandless: “Happiness is only real, when shared.”

The second group never shows or bring out their work. For some reason they don't feel the need to, or are happy with themselves as is.


I am -alas- in the first group, and I know a bunch of people from the second group and I try to understand them. Maybe you also know some, observed them and tried figuring out the why's and how's....

In the first group, it is true that you get a dopamine shot every time you get applause or feedback or like.
That makes you want to show off with something again and again. Not only because you made a new series of art, or not because you're the narcissist in need for attention, but because the Social Media apps are made to get you addicted to dopamine.

Dopamine not only ensures that there are gambling/drug/sex/shopping addicts and such, but also that you become addicted to habits that you never before saw as harmful, or saw as normal everyday behavior.
Our brains become wired to always want to get feedback/interaction/likes and therefore have an urge to want to create content and put it online.
There are already several books about this, which I would like to read when I have more time.


The second group somehow does not need that.
I know a couple of wonderful musicians who play daily in their room, but never felt the need to register or record it, or put it online somewhere, or play for an audience in a live setting. No, they're happy just to play for their own.
I know some sports people who just run already all their lives, for themselves and their health, and don't tell others. And then there are the Strava-people who need to show off their stats and tell everyone each week how much they ran, just to tell how good they are. (That's the same group 2 vs group 1.)

Imagine that The Beatles or The Rolling Stones had a mindset like people from the second group, and they only played for theirselves in their rehearsal space and never recorded anything and never played it outside their rehearsal space, for an audience.
Nobody would ever know what they made. Nobody would ever get inspired by them.

Why do some artists come out of their personal space and show it to the outside world? Because they need a podium? Because they need attention? Because they enjoy someone else enjoys? Because other reasons?

I'm currently doing a sort of digital detox this month, with apps like Instagram. An app I'm using for 10 years now, very continuously. I sometimes took a detox break before (on holidays), but this time it's different, for other reasons, and I'm getting more philosophical about it. My brains also tells me I'm a bit addicted, yes, there there, I admit.


To get back to my example: why would I capture that sunrise, to show it to people who don't care? Because: not much people care.
It's a very existential question to me.
Why would we do what we do.
I finally didn't take that picture. I also thought: what's the reason why I was here? To not take that picture?

After my detox I'd love to become more like the ones in the second group, enjoying myself, the process of creating... authenticity... but at the end I'd sit there with my creations... and if I put it online to show, it feels like I'm the attention whore just doing that for likes?
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Thanks for sharing such a thoughtful and lengthy post. And while I essentially agree with you about the "two groups", I think that your description of them is really more about two opposite and extreme poles on a spectrum. Probably most of us fall in between, and migrate back and forth between those poles. As I've often said on RFF in other posts, the conceptual herding of people into "either/or" groupings does everyone a disservice. Anyone want to argue film vs. digital? :p
 
boojum said:
Years ago when I was living in Silicon Valley I had a friend who was a professional photographer. He's the fellow I have mentioned before who carried his Leica, an M3 IIRC, in an old, beat-up WW I gas mask bag. He chose not to advertise he was carrying a camera, expensive at that. And he used to joke that said camera "had never been sullied by color film". Anyway, we were talking over coffees at Peets one day about shooting and success rates. He said when he was new to the game and naive he figured that every shot on a roll should be a good shot. Experience and maturity taught him that one in a roll of thirty-six was good. Remember that he was good enough to make a good living with his cameras. This is a professional speaking, not an amateur philosophizing. He was talking real world "get paid for it" real world.

Too follow your example of pressure, if it were true all code written under real pressure in Silicon Valley, or anywhere, would be correct first shot, straight out of the box. It is not. It always needs debugging. I have worked many nights until three or four in the morning because code had to be delivered on a deadline. The whole team worked those hours. I challenge you to provide real world examples of products prepared under extreme pressure that are always right first shot. Take all the time you need. And if you really have one, introduce it to computer coders' bosses. They will be thrilled to pieces.
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As a latecomer-reader to this post, I reckon it's the best argument for going digital I've read in a long time.

To me the One In Thirty Six way is as silly as the Spray And Pray technique (if I dare call it a technique) or the uber-minimalist approach of taking only one image of any subject. We have the gear and the methods entirely at our disposal, so why not use them to their best functions?

I've never coded, but many friends did during my work years. All had to put in the long, hard hours at the computer, as boojum has so well described in his post. Most admitted that after a few years, they basically hated the work, and they stayed in it only for the money. Eventually the best ones I knew gave it up and went to other professions one friend especially aptly described as "sanity salvaging".

Interesting to note that most of these IT wizards had entirely manual cameras. Rolleiflexes, Leicas, Kodak Retinas, Canon Qs. It was as if they sought out basic mechanical photo gear as therapy to keep their minds from thinking entirely in code.
 
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Two examples:

I went out with my Polaroid SX-70 (actually one of the MiNT Camera derivatives models, SLR670a) on my walk today. A pack of film is eight exposures and costs US$22+ ... So, in an economical frame of mind, one tries to make every exposure count. On my one hour walk, I made seven exposures; while all seven came out properly focused and reasonably well exposed, when I reviewed them (I never look while I'm walking, I wait until I get home and they've had a few hours to develop to near final look) three of the seven are fairly decent photographs. That's about as good as it gets.

I loaded the third roll of film into my Voigtländer Vito II more than a month ago and finally finished it, making 34 exposures total, a week or two ago. Out of those 34 frames, I found 12 that I thought worth posting, with two of those being a little dicey due to camera motion blur (1/2-1/4 second exposure times, hand held) pursuant to my intents. That's pretty darn good, even for me; I'm usually satisfied with 3 decent frames.

So ... I don't know whether this promotes using digital capture more or not. When I shoot with digital capture, I generally get loose and experimental, and toss a higher percentage of the captures. UNLESS I'm working hard to try to make every exposure count, like I do with film. And I try to do that as a regular practice, because that's always how you get the best possible photographs. On average, this means that my 1-2 hour walk with a film camera often makes 7 to 15 exposures, and a similar walk with one of my digital cameras makes 20-40 exposures simply because I can make as many as I want to with no additional cost, and both walks average two or three satisfying, finished photographs. If I'm working at it. ;)

G

PS:
Interesting to note that most of these IT wizards had entirely manual cameras. Rolleiflexes, Leicas, Kodak Retinas, Canon Qs. It was as if they sought out basic photo gear as therapy to keep their minds from thinking entirely in code.
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I dunno. I did technical work.. designing systems, testing, writing code, etc etc.. for my entire career from 1984 until 2016. I worked my photographic pursuits and businesses alongside that. I used whatever cameras did the job I was trying to do, film or digital depending on the era, and it never influenced or changed my mind about what I was doing in my career. I always preferred manual cameras because I found them simpler to operate than trying to figure out how to make the automated cameras do what I wanted them to do despite the automation.
 
JoeV said:
I think this thread, and RFF in general, constitutes “social media.”
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I have been away from this forum for almost 8 years (life got in the way)... and since I was picking up some analog camera's again last week, and I thought about joining a local analog photographers gang in my region, I thought about visiting this forum here again for some information.

I first didn't know this forum would still exist, or that people would still post often here, as it's analog and a niche market.

But I see so much reactions in the couple of threads I posted to, so many great posts, so much better than the stupid one liner quotes on social media. This is really great news to me, to see real people are still there. Thank you so much all.
 
One aspect is that digital, everything is meant to crap out sooner or later. And todays high end, great shooting machine, is going to be the following days newest piece o crap machine that is not worth anything... so buy this new one for 50% more money.

Its easy to understand that concept, take the oldest digital camera you have on hand. And then compare it to the latest camera of the same brand of 2024. Not a whole lot has changed, but the price sure has.

Look at the last few generations of Nikon Mirrorless, some cameras have gained an impressive 3 frames per second shooting ability, with the adition of an extra image processing chip, and a nice price tag boost of 15-2500$. That lowly last gen model sure looks lovely.

But seriously, most people say the newest digital model camera is "a worthy deal" because you can sell it and get alot of the money back when you buy the next generation ...

And as much as some like to mock the cost of film, my d7500 the most expensive memory card costs 60$ for a 512 GB. Shooting jpeg, thats probably 40,000 images. Some of the newer CFe memory cards cost as much as a top of the line Ipad..
 
It's hard for me to precisely quote who said it, but a couple years ago (or pandemic times) I recall a photo gear prediction in which Digital cameras per se were becoming niche, and they have. It's not anymore fast cycles of rapid obsolescence. There are some new heavy changes, but some systems like m43 are relatively plateaued. And also, demand supply + inflation, the second part of the prediction was high prices; which in my not so up to date digital camera purchaser mind, I am seeing some bodies upwards of $2K as a normal, which was a stretch before.

It's interesting how the perception of time is, but the decade of 2010s began 15 years ago (!). Using an EM5 mk I (2012) and a RX100IV (2016?). I've been looking at renewing something, as the latter has been worn out, but still rationalising where and what should I end paying up to replace or renew.

Forums are social media at least by the wikipedia definition, but they are not the corporate owned, algorithmically fueled platforms. Again it's more part of the old web and does not have the new layer of enshittification on top.

Godfrey said:
I don't know whether this promotes using digital capture more or not. When I shoot with digital capture, I generally get loose and experimental, and toss a higher percentage of the captures. UNLESS I'm working hard to try to make every exposure count, like I do with film. And I try to do that as a regular practice, because that's always how you get the best possible photographs.
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Ditto. In my case, I consider my phone as another photographic tool so it's mostly snapshooting and a sort of visual diary. Then, the more carefully planned out approach with film. Film has always been proportionately costly since I have been in the medium, so have been careful with shooting it. I do acknowledge that earlier on this led to sadly miss many shots because they were not taken.
Nowadays I use mostly medium format and "shoot to print", aiming at a high keeper rate.
 
Prest_400 said:
Forums are social media at least by the wikipedia definition, but they are not the corporate owned, algorithmically fueled platforms. Again it's more part of the old web and does not have the new layer of enshittification on top.
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True.
I've been on the internet almost 30 years and I'd be sad if forums would disappear.

Forums are also something you post on via a computer, you take the time to write something more in depth.
While things like Instagram are apps on a phone, you're not going to type long texts, it's even limited, and it's superficial.

The difference is the audience.
While I know there are also intelligent people using Instagram, you only have small talk there. More deep conversations are only found on forums.
Well, maybe not everywhere... I know forums where a lot of bullshit is spread, but this forum here is well maintained.

+20 years ago I was mainly on local forums where meetings and gatherings were organised and I met a couple of nice people back then, in real life.
That's not the case anymore now - these local forums from my region don't exist anymore - I'm only on worldwide forums and I'm not quickly meeting up with someone from another country.
That's where apps like Instagram are much more convenient, where I still do get in touch with locals. e.g. I can see in stories who goes to the bar or shop on the other side of the street and we can directly connect. Privacy-wise not always good, but people are personally responsible for what they put online about what and where they're doing things.

I didn't expect this much activity on a forum like this, when I came back looking here... I thought it would have been dead already. I'm not sure about the demographics, but I always think forums have older people and other social media have the youngsters.
The older people I knew from +20 years ago on forums, are perhaps not alive anymore now.
 
Godfrey said:
Hmm. My 2003 Olympus E-1 is still working perfectly, still making absolutely lovely photographs, despite being only 5Mpixel. And still feels the best DSLR body shape and size I ever used... :)

G
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So is my partner's ancient Nikon D90. It was formerly mine and was handed down when I bought a D700 and later a D800 - in fact I now own two of each, the theory here being that if one is good, two must be twice as. I do draw the line at buyng a third - as they say, in bed two is company, three is a crowd (not counting cats).

It's easy to forget that all the digital professional photography done from, let's say 2004 when Nikon and Canon both came out with super good DSLRs, was with 5.1 MP and 6.1 MP. In 2019 I sold ten photos I took with our D90 to a German publisher of architectural books. One image I hand held the D90 with the 18-55 Nikon kit lens to make was printed as a two page spread and held up really well. I reckon their art director did wonders with that photo, but the D90 made the basic image to its best definition (= RAW).

So yes, as others have posted here, with cameras (and many other things), old isn't necessarily outdated.
 
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Godfrey said:
Hmm. My 2003 Olympus E-1 is still working perfectly, still making absolutely lovely photographs, despite being only 5Mpixel. And still feels the best DSLR body shape and size I ever used... :)

G
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Our Casio QV-5700, [which has a beautiful Canon 34-102 ~ F2/2.5 lens] and D1H are still lovely to use and despite their low MP count produce perfectly usable images.

I don't see the world as most do and even when Apple say our 2009/11 iMacs are obsolete, I put 32GB Ram in them buy i7 CPUs, fit SSDs and smile when they do more than the WIN10 Laptop that's only 4 yrs old, as someone said in the Amp Building world, it's not the fault of the technology, it's how it is used....
 
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bulevardi said:
The difference is the audience.
While I know there are also intelligent people using Instagram, you only have small talk there. More deep conversations are only found on forums.
Well, maybe not everywhere... I know forums where a lot of bullshit is spread, but this forum here is well maintained.

+20 years ago I was mainly on local forums where meetings and gatherings were organised and I met a couple of nice people back then, in real life.
That's not the case anymore now - these local forums from my region don't exist anymore - I'm only on worldwide forums and I'm not quickly meeting up with someone from another country.
That's where apps like Instagram are much more convenient, where I still do get in touch with locals. e.g. I can see in stories who goes to the bar or shop on the other side of the street and we can directly connect. Privacy-wise not always good, but people are personally responsible for what they put online about what and where they're doing things.
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Sorry to hear about those who are gone. Localization depends, and I am lucky to have a good local forum through a photo club that also has a great darkroom. This discussion makes me notice that I do mostly my own, though I help out and even informally mentorised and instructed people.
My social structure is rather well set up that sometimes people mentioning "but places like these are great to meet people" make me realise that they are those vanishing third spaces —but also it can take quite some maintenance, and poof, such can vanish somehow almost inadvertently. I have frequent coffee meetings with a one friend and we discussed about such, losing touch with people and communities.
There are quite some discussion about these third spaces being eaten up by social media, and that lack is what contributes to the societal set up. A loneliness epidemic is of concern in the western world.

I've been in IG for... 10 years at least?! and I was a latecomer, but overall to all the social media platforms.
Aside of the change of content push, whereas back then I had a very nicely curated feed and contact which was film photography related, now it is a mess. I more than once find myself doomscrolling but it's not horribly bad, and I stay for the network effect.
Do have a dissonance there, I never have been a social media photography poster so do not do much in sharing. Whereas I have many photo friends, I am finding that I have a lot of those legacy contacts from former places.

As of deep conversation, I still have the forum mindset in IG comments but it's "eh". Mostly you see the "nice shot" one liner comments and rarely deep discussions IMO. DMs are good but it's private media and I have good contact with just a couple photographers that way. I was quite amused by the rise of the film photography scene in Youtube and find it rather similar. It might be as well that the way people approach social media and such has changed.
 
I was posting this yesterday in another thread... but I think it seems to fit in here more...

Talking about Digital Detox, ... The things with social media, smartphones and internet, it has both advantages and disadvantages. Technologies can be time-saving and useful, but aswel time-consuming and harmful, as it wires our brain the bad way, as some are very addictive.
We walk into it with open eyes and don't directly see the negative parts.

I came across a few books about this topic, about how digital capitalism created the mental health crisis.
Perhaps some of you have read them?

* Stolen Focus: why you can't pay attention - Johann Hari
* How to break up with your phone - Catherine Price
* An Anxious Generation: how the great rewiring of childhood cause... -Jonathan Haidt
* Essentialism: the disciplined pursuit of less - Greg McKeown
* Dopamine Detox: A Short Guide to Remove Distractions and Get Your Brain - Thibaut Meurisse


All these seem very interesting to me and I'm quite willing to read some, but from what I've read about it in the meantime, the reviews, the videos, TED talks, ... I think I know it by now. It's all been summarized and explained before.

I would do a detox mainly to gain time and be able to spend it useful... in contrary, reading hundreds of pages of books about this topic is also a waste of time. Valuable time, and filling it meaningfully, is exactly what it's all about.

Unless someone recommends these (or other) books for other reasons? Perhaps there are many insights I (or others) don't know yet, and can be very helpful. Which of you did a detox or applied methods in order to ... and did you really gain benefits from it?
 
Detox: a process or period of time in which one abstains from or rids the body of toxic or unhealthy substances; detoxification.

I need a detoxification from all the insane and asinine politics that are destroying all the good that has been accomplished in the world.

Whatever happened to the basic needs for honesty and integrity, the golden rule, loving thy neighbor, equality, responsibility?

Once upon a time people were interested in philosophy, higher learning, getting beyond the stupidity of racism. We were so close to brotherly love.

Now it's no step forward for man and a giant step backwards for mankind.

I feel so frustrated and sad.

Mike

Edit: Sorry if this is a downer for some people. I have nowhere else to vent. Sorry.
 
Before phones it was computers. Printing presses were a threat at one time, too. New ideas can be scary. Change is always a threat, to some.
 
Yokosuka Mike said:
Detox: a process or period of time in which one abstains from or rids the body of toxic or unhealthy substances; detoxification.

I need a detoxification from all the insane and asinine politics that are destroying all the good that has been accomplished in the world.

Whatever happened to the basic needs for honesty and integrity, the golden rule, loving thy neighbor, equality, responsibility?

Once upon a time people were interested in philosophy, higher learning, getting beyond the stupidity of racism. We were so close to brotherly love.

Now it's no step forward for man and a giant step backwards for mankind.

I feel so frustrated and sad.

Mike

Edit: Sorry if this is a downer for some people. I have nowhere else to vent. Sorry.
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Well said Mike. I feel the same way.

I'm going to say one thing at the risk of thread drift and then I'll shut up, but just think about this: the political forces that are destroying all the good in the world want us to feel frustrated and sad.
 
Axel said:
The title of this thread insinuates that (all?) digital is "toxic".
I don´t think so. Only behaviour can be.
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Behaviour can be toxic, but what causes this behaviour? It's not always intrinsic toxic.
Behaviour can become toxic.
Due to external factors that transform your behaviour, or that make you adapt to something.
Certain social media are ingenious crafted to change ones behaviour.
 
Yokosuka Mike said:
Detox: a process or period of time in which one abstains from or rids the body of toxic or unhealthy substances; detoxification.

I need a detoxification from all the insane and asinine politics that are destroying all the good that has been accomplished in the world.

Whatever happened to the basic needs for honesty and integrity, the golden rule, loving thy neighbor, equality, responsibility?

Once upon a time people were interested in philosophy, higher learning, getting beyond the stupidity of racism. We were so close to brotherly love.

Now it's no step forward for man and a giant step backwards for mankind.

I feel so frustrated and sad.

Mike

Edit: Sorry if this is a downer for some people. I have nowhere else to vent. Sorry.
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The bad actors make all the noise and get all the attention, and have become very skilled at doing so. It can seem like that's all there is. But many, many of us keep the flame burning; we lay low and stay quiet, but keep our hearts open to others who are like-minded. We know each other when we meet. Stay strong!
 
In our now crazy topsy-turvy world, we still have one option. We now can/must all become anarchists.

Not violent ones, at least not yet. The day of flinging bricks and stones through the office windows of our elected politicians may be coming, but they are not yet here.

Instead we can be ready and willing to peacefully undermine all we consider toxic or evil.

The list of both is lengthy.

Why not begin by actvely or even aggressively boycotting all businesses that directly fund or act against the common good. Who contribute money (bribes?) to toxic politicians and their toxic allies and minions who then undermine all we value in a democratic world.

Notably a certain brand name of motor vehicle manufactured by a certain brand name toxicant person, who has a seemingly obsessed mission of undermining democracy.

The power of money is universal. It can do or undo anything.

This has succeeded before. It can succeed again.
 
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