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National Geographic photo contest winner sums up 2014 in a single snap

The photo declared the winner of this year's National Geographic Photography Contest sums up 2014 in one image, which, of course, can be viewed on your phone. Hong Kong photographer Brian Yen captured the image he called "A Node Glows in the Dark" when the lights dimmed during a train ride at Hong Kong's Ocean Park. "I feel a certain contradiction when I look at the picture,'' Yen told National
In the last 10 years, mobile data, smart phones and social networks have forever changed our existence. Although this woman stood at the center of a j...
In the last 10 years, mobile data, smart phones and social networks have forever changed our existence. Although this woman stood at the center of a jam packed train, but the warm glow from her phone tells the strangers around her that she's not really here. She manged to slip away from here, for a short moment, she's a node flickering on the social web, roaming the earth, free as a butterfly. Our existence is no longer stuck to the physical here, we're free to run away, and run we will.Brian Yen / National Geographic

The photo declared the winner of this year's National Geographic Photography Contest sums up 2014 in one image, which, of course, can be viewed on your phone. 

In the last 10 years, mobile data, smart phones and social networks have forever changed our existence. Although this woman stood at the center of a j...
A photo of a woman glued to her phone by Hong Kong photographer Brian Yen was selected as the winner of this year's National Geographic Photography Contest.Brian Yen / Today

Hong Kong photographer Brian Yen captured the image he called "A Node Glows in the Dark" when the lights dimmed during a train ride at Hong Kong's Ocean Park. 

"I feel a certain contradiction when I look at the picture,'' Yen told National Geographic. "On the one hand, I feel the liberating gift of technology. On the other hand, I feel people don’t even try to be neighborly anymore, because they don’t have to. The picture is also a reflective one. I also feel a bit guilty, more and more, that I’m just like that lady in the middle of the train, lost in her own world."

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