‘Black Mirror-esque’: Sea of phones at Carnaby Streets Christmas lights switch-on sparks huge backlash

An EastEnders legend has joined a huge backlash over footage showing a sea of phones at the Carnaby Street Christmas lights switch-on in London’s West End.

Hundreds gathered to watch the event on the evening of November 4, which helped to kick off the capital’s preparation for Christmas.

Video shared online appeared to show most people recording the lights and fireworks on their mobiles, rather than taking it in with their own eyes.

Former EastEnders actress Natalie Cassidy wrote: "Why is this piece not mentioning the fact that no-one is looking through their eyes at this beautiful display? It's really scary and depressing."

Another wrote: "Remember when we used to look at stuff directly with our eyes? Those were the good old days.”

Another comment read: “Not one of those videos got watched and everyone missed the moment”.

Many of the comments compared the situation to dystopian anthology drama Black Mirror.

Many studies have been conducted to understand the impact on our memories when recording events via photos or films, since camera phones became to widely owned.

Former Eastenders actress Natalie Cassidy

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A number of these studies have concluded that taking a photograph or film of something can prevent people from remembering something accurately, as humans subconsciously rely on the camera to do the work of remembering rather than memorising events themselves.

Cognitive psychologist Dr Linda Henkel termed this phenomenon as "photo-taking-impairment" during research on the topic in 2014.

Dr Kaitlyn Regehr, from University College London and the University of Toronto, told the BBC: "This is not the first year that people have attended events and watched those events through screens.

"But what's significant is that this year there's a lot of critical public discourse happening. And that, I think, is really, really positive.”

Carnaby Street’s Christmas lights

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The professor said that the backlash speaks to “where we are as a society at the moment," and said it showed "our discomfort with the amount of influence that big tech is playing on our lives".

Dr Regehr added: "We, as millennial parents, have memory of Christmases prior to smartphones.

"We have quite visceral ideas about what that meant to us and I think people are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with their children not having those same experiences or the way in which technology is mediating those experiences for their children.

"Parents are now becoming really uncomfortable with the hold through which technology has on their families' lives."