Teenagers today seem to adore social networking. However, how is it that photos posted on social media don’t show the atmosphere or the context of an event, merely individuals and what they are wearing?

A few days ago, I was going through my grandma’s photos from when she was young and I noticed that all of the photos made me feel happy in one way or another. They presented a few people laughing around a bonfire unaware of the camera or a warm lunch spread over the table and my grandma proudly laughing over it with a wooden spoon in her hand. I spent the whole afternoon reading descriptions written on the back of the photos and I was able to empathize with the people who were photographed.

As soon as I got home, following the pattern of so many 18-year-olds, I visited my Facebook and Instagram accounts. The only thing that I noticed there was a whole lot of similar-looking boys and girls wearing poor smiles and rich clothes. The background of the photos was dimmed and the descriptions contained a popular joke or a link to the new Rihanna song. These (surprisingly) gave me no account of where these teenagers were or what they did.

I don’t even have to mention how every time I’m showing photos that I took of my friends to them, they annoyingly start zooming in towards their faces until they find the one that "goes for the cover photo."

While social networks give us a chance to share beautiful life moments with all of the people who we know, we abuse them by creating imaginary avatars which we assume will enhance our social status. Cheerful photos from an event that we enjoyed seem to be worthless if they don’t receive enough approval in the form of "likes" or some "stickers" sending hearts in the comment section.

I choose not to believe that this is the way that it will always be and that, soon enough, this trend will wear off as well. I hope that teenagers will start using their network profiles differently so that they can show their grandchildren what "growing up in the '10s" was all about.