2 min read
There have been some amazing technological advances in telephonic communication in the past few years. I remember being fascinated as a child by the telephone my grandparents had in their house. It was so heavy that no one under the age of 14 could lift the receiver unaided. And, under the dial, there was a little drawer in which they stored a small packet of tissues and a pencil sharpener. Because the phone was located in a very draughty hall, my grandparents tended not to make any calls in the winter.
How times have changed. Now the iPhone 6 boasts a number of features including, I believe, the ability to teleport you from one place to another. And the newest Samsung Galaxy includes an app which can turn it into a hoover or a kneidl.
In fact, every new phone needs a USP these days seeing as they are all capable of remarkable things. But I was depressed to read last week that the new HTC Desire Eye features a 13 megapixel front-facing camera. Basically, this phone is being sold as THE phone for selfies. This means there are people who are so self-absorbed that they are buying phones specifically to take photos of their own faces.
It's a craze that I don't really understand, partly because I hate looking at pictures of myself. I have always believed that I was unphotogenic. However, having looked at lots of photos of myself over the years, it is beginning to dawn on me that I actually look like that. I certainly don't need to take any selfies to prove it.
At about the same time that I was trying and failing to lift the telephone receiver in my grandparents' house, my dad bought a state-of-the-art Canon camera. As far as I remember, he never took a picture of himself with it. He took photos of his family and his car, and there were lots of slightly out-of-focus shots at the seaside.
It's nicer to take pictures of others, not oneself
In those days, people took photos only on Chanucah, at their children's bar- or batmitzvah, wedding day or on holiday. What they didn't do was post photos of themselves on social media (mainly because it didn't exist), or with celebrities, to prove that you had once invaded their personal space.
There is something nice about taking pictures of people other than yourself. And, thankfully, it seems at least some in the younger generation are rebelling against the selfie. My 12-year-old daughter, Lucy, will not be getting the new HTC Desire Eye, partly because she already has an iPhone but mainly because she feels "that selfies are emblematic of an insidious paradigm in which narcissism has been elevated into some twisted zeitgeist". Actually, she didn't say that at all - I extrapolated it from her rather pithier comment that "selfies are uncool".
I agree with her. I'm happy to be so old-fashioned that I don't need to post photos all the time, which is why the image of me on this page has not been changed since 1962 when it was taken with the help of one of those exploding flashes. It could probably do with updating but, between you and me, I can't work the camera on my phone.