Never in the history of technology has photo sharing been so unbelievably simple. Because of that, this generation lives for photo sharing. We thrive on it. We take every possible opportunity to snap a picture and make it available for the world to see. We post them on Instagram, we Tweet them for favorites, we Snap them for five seconds, we share 'em to Facebook. And why wouldn’t we? If I can let my friends and family see the entirety of my spring break vacation through one paperless, free, zoom-able online album, of course I’ll utilize that technology. As an (extremely amateur) photographer, I am not against digital photo sharing! It’s easy, it’s free, it lets our moms see our faces. What could be better?

But, as always, I’m here to point out the flaws and negative effects the constant use of our über-advanced technology has on us.

As a lover of Mother Earth, I’ll admit how contradicting it is for me to choose developed images over digital ones. Trees likely breathed a sigh of relief when we stopped looking at pictures on paper and started looking at them on screens. But I can’t begin to tell you how much fun it won’t be to grow up and look at my high school and college memories through the screen of my smart phone. Why? Because it probably won’t happen. I can whip out my phone at any given moment, scroll back to the beginning of my Instagram and time hop through my Facebook literally whenever I want, so it likely won’t be a big deal when I decide to do it again 10 years from now.

I can, however, tell you how much fun it is to go to my parents’ house, my grandma’s or my aunt’s and crowd around a huge box of old pictures and dive into them once or twice a year. You grab hand-fulls of them and pass 'em around. You snatch away the embarrassing ones of yourself and laugh at those ones of your sister. You pick one up and say, “Remember this?” and reminisce on that exact moment. You well with tears when you see the one of your grandma alive and laughing in that 4-by-6 rectangle. You dig to the bottom to find those hidden Polaroids and ancient baby pictures. You stack them all back away when you’re finished and look forward to the next time someone gets to sift through these paper memories.

The one thing these beloved images likely have in common is that they were taken with a disposable camera. They were captured by the now forgotten click-and-wind of a Kodak, and the only way to ever see them was to bring your disposable to the nearby Wal-Mart or Walgreens to be developed. They required patience but always held excitement. They exist in real life as ink on paper, not in the virtual world as pixels on a memory card.

I know what you’re thinking, and I even thought it myself. We all still have printed images in our homes. Family portraits cover the walls! And it’s just as fast to stick your smartphone into one of those digital kiosks at Wal-Mart and print some off as it is to get a disposable developed. But, alas, these pictures we print today are sorted through, carefully selected. They likely had their turn on Photoshop or an image-perfecting app. They likely required 30 captures and flashes ‘til the blinking dude and the obsessive girl got it right. They likely aren’t candid nor do they authentically represent a moment because, let’s face it, even the laughing pictures usually require an, “OK, now act like you’re laughing!”

I’m talking about the pictures that only take one try because there isn’t a delete button on a disposable. The pictures that you can’t wait to develop and look at for the first time, because there isn’t a preview screen on a disposable. The pictures that you get to hold in your hands and can only “share” by handing them off to someone else, because there isn’t WiFi on a disposable. The pictures you can’t zoom in on and find everything wrong with. The pictures we take for the sole purpose of capturing a moment and recording a memory, rather than being taken for the purpose of Instagram likes. These are the pictures I sit around for hours looking at. The pictures that aren't edited and sifted through for perfection, the pictures whose imperfections are what adequately embody a moment in time.

So go to Wal-Mart. Grab a disposable camera or two. Snap some candids and strike a few poses. Don't scream, "Redo!" when you've got a hair out of place or a blinking eye. Capture the moment you're in, exactly as it is. Whether you’re like my family and store hundreds of pictures in shoe boxes and crates, or you put them in scrapbooks or photo albums, get them developed and keep them around. Instead of making them available for the whole world to see, make them a privilege to see. Just because photo sharing is at the tip of your fingers day in and day out, doesn't mean every image you take needs to end up online. Start your own collection of photos that can be loved and laughed at without the use of a smart phone or internet connection.