A long time ago, vacations were a time when you could get away from all the people and stresses of life. Even a staycation allowed you to take some time for yourself and relax. Today, every time you refresh your feed on Instagram, Facebook or Snapchat and there is a picture of a beach with a beautiful girl in a bikini, or a skier on a mountain, or an amusement park it starts to make you feel lesser about what you are doing and brings up the question: are they vacationing for an Instagram post?
In 6th grade, iPhones entered my life, and in 7th grade, I got my own. The first thing I did was download Instagram, Snapchat, and Angry Birds. I sent out a text to my group chat with my friends to low-key gloat about how clean it was and how cool my case looked. As I started to become an avid member of the social media planet I also slowly started to become more and more self-conscious about what other people were doing and how I and how they were supposed to look or appear on Instagram. To add to all the middle school anxieties about belonging, I had to make sure every time I went on a trip or somewhere special I took an A+ Instagram photo to impress all my important followers.
Even now as I am almost halfway done with high school this is still something I still stress about. Though it seems trivial to be anxious about a picture when we are starting to prepare for SATs, I still spend hours contemplating a picture to see if I look like I have a double-chin or if my smile is awkward. While I scroll through different feeds of girls with perfect teeth and clear skin I have to constantly remind myself this is just how they are presenting themselves. They aren't always in eight-inch heels with perfect eyeliner.
My friends and I have all been someplace where there is a beautiful sunset and in the middle of our hike, instead of taking in all of the nature that is around us we take out our phones and start taking and posing for pictures that we honestly may never look at again. Posting an Instagram photo does give you a sense of accomplishment. After filtering it and devising the most clever caption you can think of you wearily press "post." There is a strange rush you get when scrolling down for your recent posts and seeing the numerous likes, comments and follow requests you've received. The feeling is fleeting, though––after 24 hours, when it leaves everybody's recent posts feed, you're back to stressing about what others are doing.
I once heard that someone went on a mission trip solely to "lose weight and get good Instagrams." Although this is an extreme version of what's happening with teens and adults on social media, it is happening. Social media opens up a fun new way of communicating, but, in the end, it is more important to collect memories instead of pictures.
