Live with your eyes more than your camera
Do all your posts really make your moments more enjoyable?
A picture of your friends visiting Greece pops up on your feed and you are immediately drawn to it with its hills full of white houses and sparkling blue ocean in the background and you think about the wonderful time they must be having. You think about your last vacation and look at the picture of you there framed on your nightstand. These are both great photos of times that clearly wanted to be remembered, but they only indicate memories; they cannot capture the experience. You continue scrolling through your feed which is full of exciting events like weddings to the most ordinary moments like what someone ate for breakfast. Most people can’t live through any event without a picture or a post, but what is seen through the camera’s eye misses more than it captures as it freezes and records a continuing moment and tries to print a 3D experience onto a 2D piece of paper. A picture cannot portray an entire event as it is only a visual. Yet so many people find themselves obsessed with photographing every occurrence in their lives because the culture around us centers around the idea that “if we don’t share it, it’s as though it never happened.” Over posting is ingrained in our everyday activities, but while we think documenting all of our experiences makes them more real and important, it actually reduces our ability to enjoy them for what they are when they are happening.
Technology plays a critical role in how we function day to day and social media has a permanent place in our daily routines. Taking pictures is an important and great way to remember moments in our lives, but the only memory shouldn’t be taking the pictures. People spend too much time worrying about getting good photos to post than actually enjoying the time they have with the people they are with. If a friend has a birthday party and all everyone does is take pictures for instagram, the party has turned into a photoshoot and has detracted from the actual celebrating. The focus on getting the perfect post is taking away from people’s abilities to actually enjoy moments while they are living them.
Social media gives us the power to create filtered through identities and personas and to control how others view us. We strive to be adored and feel important and the ability to share and like posts provides us with the praise and attention that we want and the validation of others that we are living fascinating lives. Yet, posting interesting photos does not equal living an interesting life (Frengel). Over posting has led people to be “a prisoner to the opinions of others” as people have become insecure of their own happiness and by constantly sharing pictures online they value and enjoy their experiences based on the admiration of others. By doing this people try to convince themselves that they are living “their best life”, but in actuality people would live more fulfilling and more satisfying lives if they weren’t overly concerned on how their activities would be portrayed and perceived by others. Disconnecting, even a little bit, with the digital world can help us reconnect with those around us and redirect our attention towards real life and not the refined online versions of our lives (Markley). If we are living through our experiences only centered around the perfect instagram photo or snapchat story, we are not truly allowing ourselves to enjoy moments for all that they are worth. For instance, if too much time is spent creating, filtering, and editing pictures from Disneyworld to spam the web with, time is being wasted trying to show the world how great Disneyworld is instead of enjoying the greatness of Disneyworld for yourself.
Pictures are an exceptional way to express ourselves and share our lives with others in moderation, yet it is a problem when a moment is only considered valuable, important, and special if we post about it. People use social media to try to enjoy their everyday experiences more because “it feels more complete, more real, if we share it with others who aren’t there.” But it’s a concern when the ability to appreciate and enjoy an activity is dependent upon a device and the need for others to be aware and acknowledge our whereabouts. A photo can show us what has occurred in the past, but it cannot help us to relive it, especially if we missed living it in the first place. Photos can’t help to embellish an experience as they are just capturing a limited amount of what is already present, therefore we shouldn’t let the obsession to share diminish the capacity to be fully receptive to life.
Technology has made it so easy and convenient to post anywhere anytime that society seems to shame and judge those who undershare, as oversharing is the norm. Yet, it’s ok to keep some of our lives private from the online world as some of life’s greatest experiences are simply just for us and will be benefited from more if we don’t interrupt them by fixating on glorifying them with a post before we have truly appreciated them ourselves.
Sharing things online is a way that we can inspire each other and communicate to an endless amount of people which is something to be celebrated. But social media should be used to enhance people’s experiences, not be the experience. It’s not a problem to want to share pictures of fun events online as it’s human nature to want to express positive occasions with others. I’m not advocating to not share our moments with the world and boycott the use of social media, but far too often it seems that people don’t just want to post things, but instead feel like they HAVE to in order to truly be actively engaged in their activities. There isn’t a general rule on what constitutes as oversharing online but it is evident that we have fallen victim to it when we find ourselves looking through and prioritizing our feeds more than making actual memories. An abundance of likes can never produce the same effect and atmosphere that one will endure if they allow themselves to fully take in a moment for all that it’s worth before it disappears. For if we never realize and become aware of our oversharing habits, we may never know what we are missing.