Two weeks ago, I was sitting at work. In between a few columns in an Excel sheet and a draft of a press release in the background of my desktop, my fingers slid and tapped along my roughly cracked iPhone 6. I soon found my eyes zooming over the Snapchat app. Playing through everyone's stories, I immediately knew what most of my friends were doing at that very given moment.
It made me stressed out.
I constantly had a nagging background thought about why wasn't I invited or what if my other friend is not telling me something? The nature of Snapchat is oddly intrusive and I think a vehicle that has put unnecessary stress on a lot of my current relationships.
Going to the settings, I deleted my Snapchat account and deleted the app from my iPhone. I felt an immediate weight lift off of me.
But then I ran into a confusing situation. I was leaving work and went to open Snapchat to take a photo of my company's logo while waiting for the elevator to come up to the 38th floor. Why would I want to take such a stupid photo of the logo? I shook my head and put my phone back into my pocket.
However, these moments seemed to just increase. Like molecules being heated up. I saw a cute dog on the street, I wanted to take a video to put on Snapchat, but had to awkwardly reason with myself that I don't have a Snapchat anymore, thus there's no need to take a temporary video of a stranger's dog.
It also happened when I would eat out. What was I supposed to do when I got my food, not take a photo to share with my friends?
Beyond me just feeling slightly lost without Snapchat, it was also a barrier for my friendships and relationships. As I mentioned before, I felt like when I had Snapchat, it caused me to overthink about everything and made me think about what everyone was doing, without me, too much.
But, now, a lot of my friends would go, "If you look at my story, you'll see this or that." But I didn't see their story. So, sometimes, I would have to slow down the conversation and make it clear that I had no context because I wasn't silently stalking you through social media.
Overall, I definitely miss Snapchat more than I thought would. From the cute apps to the geotags, it made taking photos fun. But it also begs the question: isn't it completely useless? It scares me that I was (am) so attached to an app that only made photos and videos available for 24 hours.
Think about it: How much time do you spend on photos that will just disappear forever?
