Blog Post 3- Harrison Hayes

“Web users obsessively scroll through images online, but Art Museum attendance is down, especially at large premier institutions. Unfortunately, this is true, while millions of people use the internet online to look at all distinct kinds of images and paintings, sometimes even buying them. Museum attendance has shot down to a record low and no one is willing to go out and look at the beautiful paintings in person. This happened in a couple of separate ways, first I think just because of how easy it is to access these pictures over the internet. Simply by typing in the name of the painting you can get a good close of picture of the real painting, closer than you could in the actual museum. Now when looking at a famous painting through a computer screen you really are not looking at it “in person” but if you can access the exact museum, it is an effective way to look at it. One other reason people tend to stay in on their computers or phones I think not as much anymore but when Covid hit it could have been a significant factor. Staying indoors during Covid was a major part of all of 2020 and during that time people were going nowhere, that’s where online shopping really became big and that brings me to my next point. Shopping for paintings now has become extremely easy, you no longer need to go out and look around a big museum hoping to find a painting that goes with your house. People found it much easier to use different platforms to buy and sell the art that they did not want or wanted to have, this really took out the “fun” factor of going out with your family or friends and shopping for new pieces of art that you all like. This is a bad trend. It just keeps us on our phones and computers more than we already should not be. Technology is taking over pretty much everything in our everyday lives, and I do not think that is the right movement we should be on. I would find it more fun to go to a huge museum and look at a priceless piece of art in person. Now people are wasting beautiful life moments by not going out and seeing all the paintings they would rather lay in bed and look at on a phone that is half its size. I unfortunately think this trend will not get any better. As technology keeps advancing there are only going to be increased ways that you can buy and look at art and now with VR you can do virtual museum tours which really will change the whole way you can go to a museum.