You're living it up at a party, having coffee with a friend, or just doing homework, and something utterly hilarious, humiliating, and/or uninteresting happens. It could be only funny to you, an inside joke with your friend, or actually worth everyone else's attention; in any case, you whip out your phone to capture it all on the glorious app called Snapchat. We all use it, whether it be occasionally or excessively, and we all check it religiously. It seems that the allure of finding out what other people are doing while we are sitting at home with our dogs or chilling with our grandparents is too tantalizing to resist.

Our generation's ability to post, tweet, update, and change our statuses instantaneously is looked upon as a blessing by some and a nuisance by others. Yes, the ability to communicate with our friends and family via text, call, and now even FaceTime is something that we take for granted. A lot of historical events may not have panned out the way they did if Abraham Lincoln got a text saying "Hey man, heard there is a crazy guy looking to take you out today. Keep your eyes peeled and can't wait to see your snap of that play later, keep it real."

Needless to say, events happen with or without the presence of social media and the instant communication that we have now. However, when I find myself going through an endless string of 64 second long snapchat stories (and you know who you are) before bed, I have to ask myself "Why should what this person had for lunch today matter to me?" Why is my now-estranged high school friend's drunk mother at a family reunion worth a minute or even 10 seconds of my day? Well, it isn't. And yet, I continue to watch their stories day in and day out until the little circle comes to a close, their name falls neatly back into its alphabetically ordered place, and I move on to the next name.

Don't get me wrong, Snapchat is not a complete waste of time, and I'll be the first person to admit that I have done all the annoying things I have stated above. What really irks me, though, is why, if I'm annoyed of other people's stories and snaps, should I in turn annoy them with my pointless 10 second snaps of my treacherous climb up to the third floor of Ballantine Hall every Monday and Wednesday? Why do we all whip out our phones at a party and take snaps of ourselves and a friend or two (honestly, whoever can fit in the frame) whenever "This is Indiana" comes blaring over the speakers? God knows, its not because we still look as good as when we left.

Nope. The real reason, in my opinion, is that we want the attention that we are giving others. We want people to know we aren't just sitting at home while they are at a party, we are enjoying it, and we're proud enough to even brag about it, because we're completely lying and really feel left out. It's all a facade. We love our friends, but these are the words I would never tell the people on my snapchat list: I totally tapped through your 90 second story about how awesome Lollapalooza was and I feel zero percent bad about it. Everyone does it, and if you claim you don't, you are a dirty liar.

So, next time you're at a party, or sitting at home and seeing your friends doing cool things on their stories, remember that sometimes the best things in life are left unsnapped. Memories are made when you are living in the moment, and not through the lens of your iPhone camera (or Android, I guess you can count too). Put your phone away, and your memories, the people behind you at the concert, and your friends will thank you later.