I’ve written about selfies before, but having returned recently from a trip to the Yucatan where photo ops were more prevalent than breakfast-nabbing coatimundis, I felt the need to lament the unfortunate trend of living one’s vacations through the graphic screen of one’s camera.

After a particularly enjoyable Japanese dinner in the middle of the rain forest, I stepped outside the gilded doors of the resort restaurant onto the inlaid marble walkway bounded on either side by a lovely reflection pool graced by gleaming koi to enjoy the gracefully humid jungle air and a moment without the clanging of knives. Cloaked in darkness, I looked through the plate glass floor-to-ceiling windows at a large teppan yaki community table behind which a stately ginzu chef adeptly chopped and tossed his knives skyward. To a man, those seated around the large table were viewing the scene exclusively through their phones. In unison, ten flashes illuminated the shrimp flame. Not one of the ginzu guests spoke or interacted with the others.

The distraction of the ubiquitous camera phone, or, worse, the large camera tablets that are rapidly replacing them, is an affront to the immediacy of any moment. Does the world really want to see your awful, shaky videos? Addiction to technology is, may I venture, more annoying than smoking. We have a seemingly insatiable appetite to capture all moments on our cameras, displaying a wonky courage in the face of, say, a charging buffalo at Yellowstone (yes, I’ve seen a lingering mob of camera-wielders refusing to budge in order to preserve the charge for eternity on youtube).  Are we generously turning into an intrepid horde of citizen journalists, or indulging a narcissistic impulse to earn bragging rights as the first to post? Viewing a concert through the camera scene of such a dolt seated in front of you diminishes the concert experience considerably.

“I Forgot My Phone” is a wonderful short film by Charlene DeGuzman emphasizing the loss of the world around the glowing glass. Smartphone addictions cripple relationships, vacations, and can even get you fired. Nomophobia, the fear of losing one’s phone, has settled into our lexicon, and California leads the way in retreats for cell phone addiction. Validating our existence through one’s camera phone has become more important than cultivating scintillating conversation skills, nurturing personal relationships, and letting one’s actions speak for themselves.

In all fairness, camera phones link us during times of disaster and war like no other media. I would simply like to humbly recommend that we use sober restraint, endeavor to live the moment with immediacy, and click only when our purposes are loftier than shameless self-promotion. If we can click politely and discreetly without revealing the baser side of human nature, we might become auteurs instead of voyeurs.