In a restaurant, on the subway, in a sports club, and sometimes even at work, many of us frantically click everything that catches our eye, then post a report of our day on social networks. Why are we doing this?
Anna, 36 years old, sales specialist
“I love taking pictures of everything on my phone… Once, while reviewing the pictures on Facebook, I realized that there were too many of them and it was absolutely impossible to sort out this pile of images. The photo of the children was next to a photo of a doctor’s nameplate with a funny last name. Due to the number of shots, everything seemed equally insignificant. Now, when I take out my phone, I ask myself: “Will I want to look at this frame in a few months? What about years? If the answer is no, I don’t take pictures.”
You shoot, I shoot … And we share all these pictures on the Internet! More than 50% of Europeans post their photos on social networks, and among young users from 15 to 24 years old, this figure is 84% (1). Dining out at a restaurant, relaxing by the pool, partying with friends – 23-year-old Svetlana captures everything to post on Facebook or Instagram. “For me, a social network is like a giant photo album in which I tell my story day after day,” Svetlana explains. “And if I can’t post a picture, it seems to me that part of my life has simply been wasted!” But isn’t this photo album too huge?
I can’t live in the present. Whether photographing the food we will be eating or taking a selfie with friends, we try to freeze the moment. Moreover, we also change this reality when we process photos on Instagram using filters. “It’s like we’re giving up on what just happened to us,” says psychoanalyst Katie Denard. – If we give a picture, for example, the style of the 1970s, the event begins to belong to someone else’s life, lived in a different time. Processing a photo in this way or anticipating a reaction to it, we unconsciously repress, “forget” our inability to live in the present.”
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I value myself. “The one who shoots everything in a row seeks, first of all, to show not the world around him, but to demonstrate himself,” continues the psychoanalyst. Such a person voluntarily and involuntarily creates an improved image of himself, thereby wanting to arouse interest in himself. After all, we photograph dishes in a fine restaurant, not lunch from the dining room! In the same way, we choose the selfie in which we look our best. Katie Denard believes that “we are how we show ourselves. And a lot of photos on social networks speak of the inability of their authors to deeply experience their emotions and true feelings. And in the tense expectation of likes and comments that mark the merits of the photo, an urgent need for someone else’s approval is expressed. “Such people find it difficult to heal their narcissistic wounds. In childhood, they lacked parental attention, and in vain they continue to seek it again and again in the eyes of other people, driven by an unquenchable thirst for recognition.
I share with others. It turns out that we need a phone or a camera in order to amuse our pride? This is not always the case, says Katie Denard: “If I photograph a cocktail that I will drink, then not to annoy my friends. It’s an easy way to tell them that I’m virtually clinking glasses with them too, that I think of them when I’m having fun…”
Posting photos online is like sending postcards. After all, the very name of the Instagram application comes from the expression instant telegram (English “instant telegram”). It is only important, our experts believe, that this activity does not turn into an obsession. Still, life should not consist of photographs alone.
1. According to the international sociological service TNS Sofres.
What to do?
Put your phone offline
For those who feel that they are looking for a good angle, instead of enjoying the moment, the following can be suggested. Disconnect from networks while meeting with friends. And if you do not expect urgent calls, then you can completely turn off the phone. Then, instead of perpetuating the meeting, you can devote all your attention to your friends and get real pleasure from communication.
Speak
Often photographs show what brings us physical pleasure. We love photographing a plate of delicious food in a restaurant, feet on the side of the pool, a tanned body on the warm sand. But in this way we reduce our individuality to its bodily shell. And we say almost nothing about ourselves. Maybe it’s time to remember that you can really talk with close people and acquaintances. Instead of showing photos, share your feelings and impressions with them.
Engage your senses
Photography can impair memory (1). When shooting, we sort of shift the responsibility for the memory onto the lens, while we ourselves relax. Try, before you take out the phone, peer into the landscape, see what is happening around. “Turn on” all the senses: hearing, smell, touch … They will help you remember the event. Then you won’t have to take another photo, which will only take up space in your phone’s memory or on your hard drive.
1. Psychological Science, 2014, vol. 25, № 2.