“Back off! Back off! Watch out for the ravine… ”
Admittedly very trendy, the selfie, a kind of self-photography with the smartphone, hides a terrible proportion: its practice kills more than shark attacks.
Narcissus is more bloodthirsty than the teeth of the sea. As an introduction to his new essay
La Société du sans-contact
, Arte journalist François Saltiel offers a textbook:
"If the passengers of the Titanic had had smartphones, how many would have yielded to the temptation to photograph himself in front of the heroic orchestra which continued to play at the time of the sinking?
"
It is certain that they would have been numerous, provided they had a sacrosanct network in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean ...
With this essay subtitled by a pessimistic “selfie of a falling world”, Saltiel takes the reader into our digitized and ultraconnected society where the virtual slowly nibbles the real.
"No man is an island,"
said the poet John Donne.
"It all depends on whether it captures", could answer the author.
First two acronyms
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