How the iPhone Ruins Walking

Tech’s war against the flâneur

“Corona walks 11/…” by koen_jacobs is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/?ref=openverse.

My father-in-law used to like to come into the City to take pictures of people’s faces. He doesn’t come in much any more. Everyone is looking down at their phones.

This raises a critical point: the loss of random encounters that are the basis of being what the French call a flâneur. What is a flâneur and where did this kind of person come…