Phone addiction could lead to one’s fall — literally.
Humpty dumpty couldn’t leave his mobile phone; Humpty dumpty had a great fall.
This curation discusses adverse physical impacts on self and surrounding people due to mobile phone addiction.
1) Microsoft Windows 7 Phone Commercial
This commercial shows various ridiculous scenarios in which people still cannot look away from their phones. Some people miss out on wonderful things in their surroundings they could enjoy, others neglect tasks on hand leading to accidents, and worse still, some even cause discomfort and inconvenience to surrounding people. While many of these might be exaggerated for emphasis, I think it does bring to the viewer’s attention the real potential for inflicting harm to self and others because of mobile phone addiction. It brings out how things go unnoticed by those lost in their “mobile phone” world, and making viewers laugh at the absurdness of these problematic characters is a subtle yet strong persuasion for the viewers to not be like them. It appeals to the viewer’s desire to protect their own reputation and safety (pathos) — avoid the embarrassing and uncomfortable scenarios shown in the video.
The last scene gave the positive side that when one puts down his phone, he gets enjoy the moment. I think it helps a lot to show the benefits of curbing addiction after a whole video of its harms because it tells the viewer there’s a solution and a hope, which empowers the viewer with perceived efficacy.
2) Johns Hopkins University: Be a Road Scholar
The above two posters, which belong to the public safety campaign Be a Road Scholar, are focused on texting while walking (distracted walking) and are strategically targeted at university students. Simple yet smart use of visuals is employed in both images. The first features two tyre marks on the ground, with their ends fading away to indicate high speed. However, the marks also resemble bar charts. It links to the main caption on the picture, which implies that “street smart” is a higher “degree of intelligence” than “book smart” or “test smart”. The second features a crack, alluding to a prior accident.
The use of “degrees of intelligence”, “do the math” and “unless you want to become a statistic” ties in with the whole idea of being a “road scholar”, which all relate to university students’ desire to do well academically. Other than the logos of math, pathos is also employed in relation to the students’ pride. The posters are almost saying “if you’re really smart, you wouldn’t text while walking”.
These images are a good example of relating to the target audience based on their attitudes and wants. It is particularly useful because we also aim to target university students for our project.
