Is technology killing our empathy?
This is the question Jacquelyn Quinones asked during her recent TEDx talk in Paris. This is a question that we, as travel photographers, should ask ourselves every day.
Technology lets us travel fast and almost always comfortably to remote places. It enables us to take thousands of photos of people from different countries and alien cultures. It invites us to share those photos on the Web with our followers. But in the end, aren’t many photographers treating their subjects as if they were animals in a zoo? What is the story behind the portrait of a woman from the farthest reaches of Borneo? Where is the respect? Where is the empathy?
I discussed these topics with Jacquelyn in a conversation that was, for once, devoid of geekery and totally focused on how we can change our approach to technology for the better.
A visionary in technological communication, Jacquelyn has traveled the world studying the interconnectedness of humanity. Having spent over a decade decoding the human plight through storytelling, the reimagining of emotional experiences piqued her curiosity of the psyche – specifically the effects of technology on the human experience. She began an inquiry into the significance of honesty and empathy in the world of easy online communication. The accelerated innovation of new technologies, proliferation of social media, and ease and convenience of superficial communication led her to question, “Is technology killing our empathy?” In 2015 she founded BANDYD LLC, a revolutionary social media platform born out of her desire to reinvent technological communication and promote interconnectedness.
Duration 37m 56s.
If you liked this episode, please tell us in the comments below, or leave us a review on iTunes. Thank you!
Music for this episode: “Zanzibar” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Links
Photos by Jacquelyn
Lovely photos, if I’d taken photo’s of my journeys in life, discovering the world & myself. I may not have truly appreciated those precious moments, “in the moment”…but i suck at technology anyway 😉