Instagram added a new feature that’s the equivalent of a Snapchat story to increase traffic, I would imagine, and quite honestly, it seems a bit absurd. To be fair, I’m not the most technologically savvy person and there could be a very rational reason behind adding this feature that a lot of people could really appreciate. My thing, though, is that social media is going from accepted narcissism to over exposure, and potentially harmful self-absorbance that our society certainly does not need more of.

This is the way I see social media. Facebook has always been for sharing big news, like babies and weddings, graduations and announcements about what people have decided to do with their lives. Then, Instagram was just photos, edited or not, and mostly focused on capturing moments designed to, let’s be honest, show off. Filtered or unfiltered, posed or candid, Instagram was far more of a visual snapshot into someone’s life rather than a day to day update. Snapchat was completely different because it focused only on daily life. Stories only last 24 hours, and the Snapchats between people themselves only last seconds. From my understanding, Snapchat is for funny pictures or moments that aren’t relevant enough to make major social media, but are worth sharing with the people you’re friends with. And all the little social media platforms complemented each other nicely. You could use each one for different things.

With those descriptors, it’s pretty obvious which social media platform would get the most traffic. Facebook is used less frequently, and Instagram can be a daily thing, but Snapchat is an every hour type engagement. So, naturally, Instagram wanted to come up with something to increase traffic, since people seem to have an understanding that if they post more than once a day, it’s irritating, and then, the traffic drastically slows down. The story feature allows people to post on Instagram whenever they want because it doesn’t directly feed to your followers, and so, people can be on Instagram every single time they do something interesting without having to worry that people are irritated.

First off, not that many people I follow are using this feature. For the most part, Snapchat has been our go-to for daily updates, as mundane and unimportant as they may be, and Instagram starting to do so is unnecessary.

The article I read detailing the reasoning behind this update was heavily focused on finding a loophole into sharing more of what we think is pertinent but not wanting to over-share or irritate people. First of all, we will always irritate someone. Even if we’re just talking at a gathering, someone is likely to think we’re talking too much and roll their eyes at us, so this loophole is a moot point. Second off, we should have an awareness level of when we’re oversharing and when we’re being too all over the place with our posts. This update completely eliminates the boundary that we all have come to know and respect of once a day posts. The more platforms indulge in the breaking of said boundary, the more the culture of comparison is perpetuated, and that is not a good thing for our society.

There are endless articles about how unhealthy social media can be: when we see someone post a picture with their significant other, we feel of lesser value; when someone posts a bikini shot, we start analyzing our own body, because we want to be like every single person on our feeds. That’s my biggest problem with the Instagram update. It’s encouraging this idea that we have to constantly make every moment memorable or shareable, when a lot of life is actually very mundane. For everyone. This is coming from a person who spent her summer before junior year in college nannying and going to bed at 9 p.m. I had the most uninteresting summer ever and of course felt a twinge of jealousy when I saw my friends’ study abroad pictures, but can look at social media for what it is: fake. Once in a while yes, we go to the beach, or to a baseball game, but in reality, not every second we breathe needs to be worth sharing. If your life really is that interesting, then why are you not out there enjoying every second of it instead of posting it all over social media?

Social media is a really wonderful thing, and if we use it correctly it can add a lot of positives to our daily life. The important thing is, though, to act on social media like you would in real life. This is something said and said again with cyberbullying, but it applies to daily life as well. We all have some understanding of how to behave at a party, or in class, and it’s not hard to apply this to the internet as well. Our lives are at their best when we share what we want and what we’re proud of, and then some, and then we just live for the rest of it. That way, we have the opportunity to enjoy what we’re doing without worrying about the photo op that may or may not come from each and every activity. We can all just learn to exist happily, occasionally share and enjoy every moment of our lives.