The Today Show posted this marvelous photo-juxtaposition on Instagram (passed on by Tom MacIsaac of Verve Mobile).
The images show people gathered in St. Peter's Square in Rome.*
The top photo is from 2005, two years before Apple's launch of the iPhone spawned the smartphone and tablet era.
The bottom photo is from 2013.
Hard to believe how much the world has changed in eight years.
*UPDATE: The Washington Postinvestigated these photos and found an important footnote, which is that the top photo was taken during the funeral procession for Pope John Paul II, rather than the announcement of the election of the new pope like the 2013 photo. (It would presumably have been inappropriate to be frantically recording the funeral procession.) The Post also found other photos of the announcement of the new pope in 2005. Those photos do show a few observers recording the event, though nothing like the photo in 2013.
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