Essay on Drawing. The Negative Effect of Using Cell Phones

Drawings paint amazing stories, but a portion of those stories tell a fearful tale. This particular image tells the story of the negative effects brought on by the popularity of social media and cell phone use. The illustrator effectively shares this point of view through the use of fiery tones combined with a bleak focal point.

Upon first glance, the forefront of this picture contains dozens of tired males and females leaning over in a zombie-like fashion, solely staring into the lit screen of their cell phone. The glare off of their cell phone reflects onto their sunken faces, revealing their sunken in eyes and lifeless skin tone. The clothes worn by the people depicted in this image all have wrinkles through them with varying dirt stains. The bare skin of these people are also dirty, as if they have not washed themselves in weeks.

As you look further into the picture, the background is covered with screens and billboards that all have images depicting cell phones and all of the cellular device brands. The sky is a sunset of a reddish-orange tone that looks rather disastrous, not a sunset that would be interpreted as beautiful by the average person.

In a sense, the world is ending, but not the existence of the world itself. As cellphone usage increases, the pre-technology world is coming to a close. Compared to the teenage world lived by adults that are now in their 40s and 50s, adolescents in this day and age live in a world of isolation. All of the norms for the younger generation are dwindling due to cell phones dissolving the need for the youth to leave their house. Instead of going outside to enjoy nature, pictures of the outdoors are easily available for your hand-held device. Instead of going out on a Friday night to see a movie, you can access thousands of movies through your phone. A task as simple as ordering food can be done from your cell phone. Cell phones allow teenagers to reside in their homes all day, which allows them to avoid any face-to-face socialization. With these changes, the life of pre-2000’s teens has come to a halt, and instead, a new individualistic era has begun.

Using cell phones takes the originality out of your life and essentially kills all individuality. Everyone looks the same on social media, everyone has the same language and everyone strives to have the biggest and most interactive following. We have become a shadow to our former selves and have instead evolved into slight variations of one another. Considering everyone is trying to be the biggest and best on social media, our real lives have suffered immensely from this norm. Society puts all of their energy into look amazing on social media, we have no motivation to be our best selves in person. No matter how amazing we portray our lives on social media, we lack those aspects in our personal lives.

The illustrator also involved so many minuscule details to effectively convey the harsh reality of teens’ addiction to cell phones. The people in this drawing are put as the center of the drawing to exaggeratedly display the effects of cell phone use on teenagers. The creator included the distressed clothes and agonizingly tired facial expresses show how much energy teenagers put into perfecting their lives for social media. By trying to look beautiful and skinny for a photo to post online, all of teenagers’ time and energy go into social media, that their real life appearance is affected.

By spending all of our time focused on social media, teens’ physical appearance suffers immensely. Whenever a picture is posted, girls especially will refresh their feed a countless number of times. Eventually, they have spent hours refreshing their feed counting all of the likes and comments. This leads to lack of sleep, hence the tired expressions shown by the people.

Pertaining to the grimy clothes, so much time is wasted on these social media sites, teens have no time to tend to their cleaning needs. Since there is not any available time for chores, clothes go unwashed constantly and the stains begin to accumulate as the weeks go by. Neglecting the need for cleanliness, the illustrator has displayed this effect through dirty clothing.

Another major aspect of this image is the building dispersed in the background. On every single commercial building, at least one image pertaining to cell phones can be seen. This shows how cell phones have become the center of everyone’s life. Everywhere we go, we find a way to use our cell phones. They are always within our reach and we feel lost without them. When our phones are not in our hand, the thought of using your phone again is in the back of your mind. Whether people realize it or not, our subconscious mind is consumed by using our technological device.

Another important component to this image is the use of warm toned colors for the background. The use of reds and oranges gives the viewer a sense of doom. Having the sky represent an evil assortment of colors shows how bad the situation involving cell phones really are. The colors in the sky can be associated with the world ending since they resemble those seen in a fire.

The story told by this illustrator explains how smart phones are detrimental to the lives of teenagers. The use of tiny details and contrast between bland and bold colors shows the reader the plethora of underlying reasons for this image. All of the details effectively show the effects of overusing cell phones, which are the red-orange sky, dull portrayal of teenagers and the prevalence of smart phone ads.

This illustration is extremely important in today’s society considering this has become the reality for many teens. All of these effects can be seen through the lives of many teens and young adults. People are so wrapped up in their cell phones that they are losing their sense of originality, beginning to lack hygiene regarding themselves and their homes and cell phones have become the most important component in people’s lives. The attention called on these problems by the illustrator will allow people to see just how dangerous being consumed in a cell phone can be.