Are Cell Phones Replacing Reality? | Idea Channel | PBS

Can you live without your phone?

We've all become pretty attached to our cellular devices: it's a GPS, a camera, a game console, a social media portal... and half a million other things, all in our pocket! From concerts to meals to our pets, we process and experience the world through our phone. But as we see in so many mobile phone ads, the representations of these moments (whether its instagrams, foursquare check ins or Facebook shares) seem to be taking over and replacing the experience itself. In this brave new world is the mobile phone a tool, or a filter through which we experience a new reality?

Let us know what sorts of crazy ideas you have, about this episode and otherwise:
Tweet at us! @pbsideachannel (yes, the longest twitter username ever)
Email us! pbsideachannel [at] gmail [dot] com

Hosted by Mike Rugnetta (@mikerugnetta)
Made by Kornhaber Brown (http://www.kornhaberbrown.com)

CGP Grey
Copyright: Forever Less One Day
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk862B...

Barats and Bereta - Hapi Birth Dey
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f2PCW...

Everything is a Remix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmwwj...

PlusEcon Response:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcCyRm...

Paper Mentioned in Comments:
Carla Hesse - Rise of Intellectual Property
http://www.amacad.org/publications/sp...

Music:
Roglok: http://vimeo.com/musicstore/track/21166
Level 5: Room for the Homeless http://www.jamendo.com/en/list/a10132...
Tony Bullard: Rockin http://soundcloud.com/toekneebullard/...
EatMe: http://www.jamendo.com/en/artist/3483...
The Grave Arcade - Graphix (Awesome Gif Idea Channel Remix!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g5-IC...


Want some more Idea Channel?

Here's Last Week's episode: "Should 'Happy Birthday' be Protected by Copyright?" http://youtu.be/fzbSt0QG7mY

Want another one? Here ya go: "Is Nostalgia the Reason for Adventure Time's Amazing Awesomeness?" http://youtu.be/7MVvkqbXiws

Here's Some More: "Is YouTube Making Us Smarter?" http://youtu.be/8qjge9U_MiA

• Category

  Education

[Kevin Burton]

What's with the pornstache?

[Tom Anderson]

People go to Nickleback concerts?

[minecrafterchic]

Where's his beard

[Sunny Nagam]

Oh my glob!!! What the stuff?!?

[kittenlove42]

Yes a phone is a filter lens for real life.

[Misaki Haninozuka]

i dont have a cellphone , but i cannot live without internet and my laptop

[NerferCo]

This question goes back to Plato's allegory of the cave. Our ears, eyes, nerves, and so forth are essentially just instruments that map the world around us-- how is one more input device, a cellphone, really that different?

[maxoomen]

I think that everything in the universe is real, so a simulation is in a way real because it exists.

[bast963]

This reminds me of Plato's allegory of the cave, where Socrates explained that what we are seeing is not really the true real life.

Then take this "not true real life" and throw it into a phone screen that is replacing it... suddenly you have two layers of falsehood!

[SleepingToe]

Would you PLEASE do a video on the language of advertising?

[Jon Barton]

It's basically down to the subjective definition of what "real" or "truth" you have. Baudrillard's theories are extreme, but it may be a shock technique to highlight marxist concerns with Capitalism and commodification of politics and education. It's a post modernist concern , just like Debord, Baudrillard feels we see everything as images. A condition of capitalism which allows the economy to run us, for the sake of its unnecessary growth. =P