As a professional partygoer, I was struck by the all too brilliant truth of a new book by longtime respected society photographer Dafydd Jones. Screen Time is a hilarious, shocking look at the belle of every ball, cell phones. No matter how fancy the fête, checking one's phone at the dinner table, brandishing it during cocktails, forcing a plus one to hold it for five minutes to take the perfect picture, even finding a corner just to sit down and scroll in silence, is all commonplace. It's an accessory without which no outfit, or person for that matter, is complete.
Needless to say, Emily Post most certainly would not have approved. Dressed in their best, invitees of glamorous and posh events, Jones's subjects include everyone from Natalia Vodianova and Princess Michael of Kent to Ginger Spice herself, Geri Halliwell. Each caught in a moment of weakness, too fixated on their screens to take in what's happening around them. Are they texting a friend who's on the way, catching up on emails, deciding which photo to post, just flipping around aimlessly pretending to be way too busy to be bothered by the fact that they're standing alone and don't know anyone else in attendance? No matter what they're doing, it's definitely not as much fun as they could be having sans-screen.
Makes you think, how often have you phoned it in?
Click through for a smattering of select social scenes from the book!
[Photos courtesy Dafydd Jones]
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