The Five-Inch World

We've got the whole world in front of us, yet an extraordinary number of us seem determined to experience it through about five inches of glass.

I realised quite how ridiculous it had become while walking through London.

Someone was coming towards me with their head buried in their phone.

Not glancing at it.

Not quickly checking a message.

Properly staring at it while walking straight towards me.

We collided.

Their phone went flying.

And my immediate response was basically:

"Look up and watch where you're walking."

They didn't get funny about it. They didn't start an argument. Nothing.

Probably because there wasn't much to argue about.

They'd just walked into another human being because the five-inch world in their hand was apparently more important than the rather larger one directly in front of them.

And it got me thinking.

When did this become normal?

Everybody Is Looking Down

Once you notice it, you can't stop noticing it.

The Tube.

Trains.

Stations.

Walking down the street.

Sitting in cafés.

People in cars.

Heads down. Thumb moving. Scroll. Scroll. Scroll.

And I'm probably a bit odd in the opposite direction.

I look around.

I look at buildings. Trees. Cars. Signs. People. Architecture. Things being built. Things that have changed since the last time I was somewhere. The stupid little details most people probably walk straight past.

Because there's stuff happening everywhere.

The real world is actually quite interesting when you look at it.

Yet somehow we've reached a point where somebody can walk through London — one of the busiest, strangest, most visually interesting cities in the world — and barely see any of it because TikTok, WhatsApp, Instagram, an email or whatever else is happening inside their phone has won.

That's the five-inch world.

And the really stupid bit?

We carry it into some of the biggest moments of our lives.

Then You See It at Weddings

A wedding is almost the perfect test of this.

Two people have spent months — sometimes years — bringing together the people they care about in one place.

They've chosen the venue. The food. The music. The flowers. The entertainment. The ridiculous little details nobody else knows took three evenings and seventeen WhatsApp messages to decide.

And then everybody arrives.

And gets their phone out.

Now, taking photographs at a wedding isn't the problem. Of course it isn't. We literally run a business that creates photographs and memories.

But there's a difference between capturing a moment and spending the moment staring at the thing you've just captured.

Take the photo.

Lovely.

Now look up.

The Table at The Bridge

I remember one wedding at The Bridge near Wetherby particularly clearly.

There was a table close to our Magic Mirror.

And at one point, pretty much the entire table had phones in their hands.

All looking down.

A table full of people physically sitting together while each of them was somewhere else.

It stood out even more because around that time we were doing some of our earliest testing around what eventually became Memories.

So there was an irony staring us straight in the face.

We're developing technology that deliberately asks people to use their phones at events...

while watching phones take people out of the event.

That sounds like a contradiction.

It isn't.

We Actually Turn the Magic Mirror Off

There are moments during a wedding when we deliberately stop.

The first dance is one of them.

If we're running the Magic Mirror and the couple are about to have their first dance, we'll shut the Mirror down for it.

We've genuinely had people unhappy about that.

"But I want a photo."

You can have one in a few minutes.

Right now, turn around.

Two people you presumably care enough about to attend their wedding are having their first dance.

Watch it.

Be there for it.

The Magic Mirror isn't going anywhere.

That moment is.

At What Point Did Recording It Become More Important Than Being There?

We've all seen it.

A first dance starts and suddenly there's a wall of phones in the air.

Speeches are happening through a screen.

Someone films a song rather than watching the band.

People take twenty versions of the same photograph, inspect them, retake them, edit them, post them and then check who has reacted to them.

Meanwhile, the actual event is still happening behind the phone.

We're becoming remarkably good at documenting ourselves having a brilliant time.

It would be nice if we remembered to have the brilliant time as well.

Hang On. Don't Memories and Memories Live Use Phones?

Yep.

This is where we're going to sound magnificently hypocritical if we don't explain ourselves. 🤣

One of the products we've built actively encourages guests to get their phones out.

Scan the QR code.

Upload a photograph.

Share a video.

Record a voice message.

Leave some words for the couple.

So no, we're definitely not campaigning for every smartphone in Yorkshire to be ceremonially thrown into a bucket at the venue entrance.

It's about what the phone is doing to the moment.

Memories is designed to let the phone contribute to the experience rather than replace it.

Capture something.

Contribute it.

Then get back to your friends, your family, the dance floor, the conversation, the terrible singing and whatever else is actually happening around you.

Then Memories Live Does Something Quite Lovely

Memories Live takes that idea another step.

Someone contributes something from the little screen in their hand.

And then it appears on the larger displays around the venue.

People notice it.

They look up.

They point.

They laugh.

Someone spots themselves. Somebody else sees a photograph from earlier in the day. A group reacts to something together.

The technology starts a human interaction instead of interrupting one.

That's the bit we're interested in.

And Then There's the Magic Mirror

Watch people when they come over to the Magic Mirror.

The phones tend to disappear.

Friends pile in together.

Someone grabs something ridiculous to wear.

Somebody starts laughing before we've even taken the photograph.

They're looking at each other. Talking to each other. Taking the piss out of each other. Making themselves look ridiculous together.

They're not documenting themselves having fun.

They're actually having fun.

Yes, there's a photograph at the end of it.

But the photograph isn't really the whole product.

The bit before it is.

Phones Aren't the Enemy

I'm not giving mine up.

Neither are you.

They're incredible bits of technology. Cameras, maps, communication, music, payments, information and half our lives squeezed into something that fits in a pocket.

And we build products that make use of them because they're incredibly useful.

But useful isn't the same as needing to stare at one every spare second of the day.

Sometimes there's nothing wrong with standing on a platform and looking around.

Sometimes you can walk down a street without needing entertainment for the journey.

Sometimes the person sitting opposite you is more interesting than whatever an algorithm has decided to put underneath your thumb next.

And sometimes, particularly at a wedding, the thing happening ten feet in front of you deserves more attention than the thing happening five inches from your nose.

Life Is Bigger Than Five Inches

That person in London will probably never know they triggered an entire Yorkshire Magic Mirror blog by walking into me while staring at their phone.

To be fair, they might not have noticed me well enough to remember. 🤣

But it made me notice something we'd already been seeing for years.

We don't need to stop taking photographs.

We don't need to stop sharing things.

We don't need to throw away the technology.

We just need to remember what it's there for.

Capture the memory.

Share the memory.

Then live the bloody memory.

Watch the first dance with your own eyes.

Listen to the speech rather than filming it.

Talk to the person beside you.

Look at the room somebody spent months creating.

Dance badly.

Laugh loudly.

Make a fool of yourself on the Magic Mirror.

Use your phone when it adds something.

And when it doesn't?

Put it in your pocket.

Look up.

Your life is happening.