You hear this phrase a lot, see it posted a lot, and find yourself saying it a lot. It's mostly meant to make fun of how much we document our lives through pictures, but at the same time there is a ring of truth in this statement. 

Our generation has become so integrated with social media like Facebook and Instagram that we practically verify every living moment of our peer group through their pictures.

"Pics or it didn't happen" has nothing to do with actually believing whether or not the person did something or was somewhere, but rather that the real moment does not "count" until it's been artificially captured, particularly through the medium of photography.

We stare at copies of the real thing and images all the time. For some reason, it seems as if something is not real or true until it is copied and recreated. What could it mean for a generation that trusts the copy more than the original?

In the constant stream of the information environment, more and more of the world is being experienced second-hand, through other people's words and images. Could the continuous flooding of copies affect creativity?

It appears that slowly people trust copies more than the original source, because for whatever reason, a copy seems to verify or certify the true object. Maybe the phrase "pics or it didn't happen" won't be so much of a joke, but a literal questioning of the truth of a story or event. 

And this is not to say that people trust people without proof less, but rather that there's a sense that artificial verification of the event being captured makes that given event "truly" real. 

Now that school has started up again, social media has been blowing up with pictures of friends, parties, and events. As we take in the stream of pictures, I invite you to wonder why there is this apparent urge to verify reality with photos. 

Perhaps it's an issue of exaggeration and wanting proof, or a compelling desire to document each moment of life. Maybe it's to make the true event feel more real, or the accessibility of photography on smartphones has shaped the "pics or it didn't happen" culture. But whatever the actual underlying origin of the phrase, it reveals some of the significant effects of social media on our generation.