Eat, Pray, Photograph

Yes, it's Friday night! Time to be freed from work. People in Jakarta spend time with close friends, meet new people, or join small gatherings with old friends. They genuinely enjoy Friday night, letting off steam, toasting to the weekend arriving, and celebrating successfully avoiding traffic jams.

Once the food orders are in, we always get super excited about what kind of visually stunning dishes will arrive. Ta-da! My dish has arrived. Once everyone's food is on the table, something strange begins.

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Everyone simultaneously starts hunting for the best angle to make their food look delicious, picks the perfect filter to make themselves look silly, and uploads!

Watching this new habit, I can't help but smile wryly. It's not just the women; the men do it too. One thing's for sure: thanks to this habit spreading, someone is bound to forget to say grace.

A few minutes later, one by one, they pull out their phones and become glued to their screens again. Their companions right in front of them are ignored. They want to check if anyone commented on their picture. Looking at other tables, nearly half the people are doing the same thing as us.

It's strange, really, because nowadays everyone has both "analog" friends and "digital" friends in their lives. We spend 30% of our dinner time interacting with our "digital" friends, effectively abandoning the "analog" friends sitting right there at the table with us. Perhaps we're heading towards a different kind of world. A world where we share our analog lives on digital platforms.

So, another question: Why food? I asked around at work: "What does food mean to you?"

The conclusion was this: Cooking and food are no longer just about filling our stomachs and getting nutrition. They've become symbols of our status, wealth, and mood. If we can buy rare, delicious, and expensive food, we can boast about it to others as a symbol of our success.

Well, I'm off to lunch with friends now. Of course, I won't forget to take pictures!

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(Supervised by: Dentsu Inc. Aegis Network Business Division)