Diary Of A Snapchat Addict

Saturday, January 24, 2015:

Earlier tonight, in a fit of restlessness with my life, I deleted my Snapchat account. Those who know me will understand that this is a big deal. My Snapchat score on this account — which I had for around 2 and a half years — was 60,000. A Snapchat score is a total of how many snaps you have sent and received. In my case, I sent over 30,000, while friends sent me in the high 20,000s. I sent over 30,000 pictures. THIRTY THOUSAND PICTURES. What could I possibly have been sending?

Well, actually I know the answer. Snapchat is a way to convey to far more friends than necessary what you are doing or what cool thing you saw. You would never just text a friend a picture of your face captioned “I hate snow L” or something meaningless. My life is not enriched by having seen your disapproval towards the snow, but you feel you have sent a tendril of social contact out, and feel almost as though your friends are with you. With Snapchat, your friends are always with you.

A Snapchat is streaming someone else’s life in real-time. The addition of the “stories” feature really exacerbated this phenomenon. I can see my friend playing with her dog, hanging out with a baby cousin, or getting drunk and going to a club. Of course, I am rarely interested in any of these “stories”, hence my decision to delete my account.

Seeing someone who I dislike’s story annoys me, but for some reason I hate-watch on. When people have an 80-second story that is just various selfies or flashing lights set to loud club music, I feel dead inside. Knowing too much about people’s lives has made me hate some people! There are some people you are just meant to run into on the street and see out at parties or bars, not know what their grandmother’s birthday dinner was like.

I have already noticed myself wanting to use the app and randomly send pictures. I am quite disturbed to uncover my addiction. Tonight I was going to a friend’s apartment in an Uber, and as I stared out the window I felt the urge to take out my phone and take a Snapchat selfie. (Have you ever heard a more 2015 sentence?) This leads me to believe I have done so before, although I don’t really remember specifically sending car selfies in the past.

Besides wanting to Snapchat in the car, I wanted to Snapchat my food at dinner, myself to let people know how full I was, and my Uber driver and I jamming to Missy Elliot and Cam’ron on the way home. But alas, no one would know about Killa Cam unless I texted them. Which I promptly did.

Sunday, January 25, 2015:

My second day without Snapchat was uneventful. I spoke to the same people I speak to daily, but they had to text me. Multiple friends said they had been looking for me on the app and it was weird I was gone. I shed a single tear. Just kidding, I actually got a lot done.

I cooked myself a delicious breakfast and was forced to share this fact by actually texting my friends a picture of my food. What is this, 2011? This brings me back to the good ol’ days when I would frequently text others (unsolicited) selfies. I’m not sure what compelled me to send a picture of my food. I just found it to be so well-arranged and delicious looking that others NEEDED to know about it. How narcissistic is that?

There were also several occasions where I wondered how I looked. I will admit, in a few of these moments I pulled up the camera app to see. I had never realized how often we are confronted with our own images until deleting Snapchat. I rarely go 3 hours without seeing my face, either in a mirror or camera. How are young people — women especially — not supposed to derive their worth from their looks when they are constantly the subject of scrutiny? I hope that in my time Snapchat-free I can gain an even stronger sense of my worth as being separate from my looks. After all, we all get older and our looks deteriorate. The last thing I want is to be an older woman living in despair at the loss of my youthful beauty. I pity those who seem so openly insecure and narcissistic, but I think that underneath we are not all that different. Who is worse: the girl who posts a selfie on Instagram to get complimented, or the girl who criticizes her for doing so, but stares in every mirrored surface just in case her appearance has changed? (I’m guilty!)

In fact, far too many casual friends and acquaintances have been ruined for me by seeing every meaningless and boring detail of their life laid out. Unfortunately, though, in a world where one’s online self holds so much weight, a lack of social presence can also have a deterrent effect on interest. Anyone who has looked up a potential romantic partner only to find a dated profile picture with no likes can attest to this. You do your best to ignore your findings, but wonder, “Are they a loser?”

Snapchat can also foster a sense of familiarity and closeness very quickly. You can know what your friends are doing without having to actually text them, and let someone know a thing reminded you of them without sending an awkward text. For example, last night, I wanted to send my friend Laura a picture of the corn I was eating at dinner. We both enjoy corn, but I wouldn’t actually text her a picture of my corn. That’s just weird.

Monday, January 26th, 2015:

I ran into a friend who told me to “check [their] story” to see something she was talking about. A great deal of what people my age experience gets funneled into their story. I know where a great many of peripheral friends are or who they’re with most of the time. Well, I did. I think I feel much better not knowing.

I feel a lot more alone in the world. Before, there was always the sense that my invisible friendship network was along with me. Being alone isn’t a bad thing, necessarily. Right now I feel really independent and free from others’ expectations and desires for me. It’s a good, but lonely, feeling. Maybe I’ll regain a little bit of mystery.

Perhaps this transition is going so smoothly because I have nothing I am truly interested in sharing right now. On trips and fun outings, it’s a different story. I feel STRONGLY compelled to take photos and videos of everything cool to show what I’m up to. Based on my feed, many others feel the same way. Every Snapchat story deletes after 24 hours (theoretically), so why would I trouble myself to add a photo of the sunset in Hawaii rather than actually enjoying it? My interest in sharing stems from a desire to have others desire my lifestyle and present circumstances. This is the crux of the whole Instagram and Snapchat culture — to subtly show how cool your life is/you are.

The blizzard Juno is coming into Boston tomorrow, and I hope I can survive without knowing how much my peers hate the snow.

Tuesday, January 27th, 2015:

Well, the blizzard is here. I’ve had to resort to sending videos and photos of the snow over text, a real low point. Even cooking my breakfast, I felt the urge to share my beautiful creation. It’s almost as though I feel that my accomplishments aren’t valid or do not exist if I do not share them with others.

Snapchat rolled out a new feature this morning — discover! While most of the channels don’t look like my cup of tea, I do love a good Vice article or video. The cumulative stories Snapchat features from big events around the world are really amazing to see. Watching the kite festival in India was one of the most interesting things I’ve seen in a long time. It’s really unique and amazing to be able to see others’ viewpoints on an event from around the world.

I feel like more of an individual now. A bit more unreachable, mysterious. It’s only been 3 or so days… clearly I am a bit deluded. By following others on social media, it’s easy to get the sense that you are up-to-date on their lives and who they are. I also feel much lonelier than I did with the pseudo-contact I had going on via Snapchat.

Thursday, January 29th, 2015:

It’s nice to let people know you are thinking about them, but it often feels like too much effort to text them… And potentially a little weird. Each social network that has succeeded has done so by highlighting a distinctly separate aspect of complex social relationships and enhancing it. Younger people are encouraged to reach out to others when they think of them. Many social networks have failed because they simply try to replicate or change aspects of other networks rather than actually change the way people communicate. That said, the founders of Snapchat probably didn’t even know they were creating a tool to help maintain relationships with marginal friends.

I was sitting in gridlocked traffic, late to a doctor’s appointment, and had the strongest urge to send a pic to my friends with a frustrated face telling them I was late to an appointment. Things like this don’t require a text. But to have someone know of and hear and have seen your struggle provides a sense of validation. You can laugh at yourself a little bit more if you post a pic of the outfit you spilled coffee on rather than just suffering through it alone.

Validation from others is one the biggest things humans look for and desire, but that which we receive from a hot Instagram picture or experience shared on Snapchat is often far more topical than validation received from sharing a personal story with a friend. If more people harnessed the power of social media to share their personal experiences and hardships, the validation would probably be much more rewarding and social media could be more of a social good. That said, vulnerability is obviously very challenging. Would it be over-sharing or wonderful if we felt comfortable sending an “I am struggling with depression” Snapchat?

Friday, January 30th, 2015:

I went to a concert last night, and it was refreshing to not care about taking videos for Snapchat. I still took one or two for my personal memories, but spent much less time documenting the experience, and found myself annoyed with my friend who was.

Saturday, January 31st , 2015:

We all share too much, but more concerning, we share the wrong things. Nothing would do more to reduce the stigma upon mental illness, body image issues, and racial bias than if these experiences were constantly shared. This is an idealistic notion that will not happen (at least now); it usually only feels safe to reveal intimate personal details like those when you can see others’ eyes to gauge their reaction. So interesting, though, how certain things people feel totally comfortable sharing — the explicit details of a hookup last weekend — while others remain taboo topics — the existential malaise they feel, or their struggles with an eating disorder.

Sunday, February 1st, 2015:

It was sad not being able to see footage of Patriot’s victory celebrations from my Snapchat friends attending them around the city of Boston.

Conclusions as of February 6th, 2015:

I haven’t been writing about the Snapchat journey primarily because I haven’t thought about it much. I have mostly stopped sending pictures of my food and what not manually to friends, and become more contended with simply experiencing things for myself. As an extrovert in the first degree, this has been a challenging mental shift to make. Ultimately, though, I think cultivating a mindset of gaining validation from within rather than from others will leave me much better off.

In the last two weeks, I have felt lonelier than I have in a very long time. I am glad that I have felt this way, though, because slowly this feeling is lifting — and it’s not due to an unusually high-performing Instagram post. Day by day, I feel happier and more confident with my skills, my looks, and my self because I have been forced to seek validation from within. We all need to reconnect with ourselves sometimes, although it’s increasingly hard to do in this connected day and age. That said, I haven’t ruled out getting a new Snapchat account in the future. Old dog, new tricks, right? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯