Living in a technology-saturated culture, it's near-impossible to walk down the street and make eye contact with the stranger coming your way. Sitting down for a venti frappuccino at Starbucks won't happen without starring in the background of half a dozen perfectly filtered Instagram snapshots, captioned with '#caffeinecrazed' or '#starbucksfam'. And if you didn't check-in at the gym on Facebook, then you might as well have never gone, right? I could have sworn I got sunburned by the glare of my phone's screen last summer. Our generation is obsessed with documenting every small detail that occurs in our lives with a picture, post or hashtag.
Despite all of the criticism we hear, I'm here to assure everyone that this is perfectly alright.
Growing up, how many of us can recall a memory that wasn't recorded on family home video with a clunky camcorder? How many photo albums are filled to the brim with seemingly inconsequential pictures of us as children doing who knows what, only saved and included because of how gosh darn cute we looked sitting on the floor with our toys? I know I could pull out hundred of Polaroids that fit this category.
Now, what's the difference between these pictures and the photos we post on social media today? Selfies, photos of our food and snapshots of our adventures (no matter how small) all prove the same purpose as the ones our parents took when we were younger. They are visual memories of lives. A digitized diary told in photographs instead of words. We can easily share these photos and posts about our lives later with our own children, the same way our parents sit with us and go look through our baby books.
I might not care too much that I made a giant tower out of my blocks when I was five, and my children might not care about the amazingly delicious cake I had out at dinner with my friends at nineteen. But the memory of me as a child is special to my mother, and the memory of my night out with my friends is special to me. Each is valid and deserved to be documented in their own way. Our actions aren't deemed OK because someone else said so.
The reasons I have for posting about my day to day life are personal to me. I want to share my life with family members I don't see on a regular basis. I want to keep an easy catalog of my life for posterity and to look back on when I'm my grandmother's age. Doing so helps me connect to my peers and my family. I enjoy it.
Whether it's to document your life, talk to friends across the globe (or down the street) or play entertaining games, your motivations for 'being on your phone' all of the time are your own. Don't feel like you have to apologize for it. I won't be.
