Hundreds of fans are raising their hands in the air during Miley Cyrus’ 2013 performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live. It’s normal for fans to raise their hands as they enjoy the music, but these concert goers are raising their hands to record the concert on their own cell phones. Isn’t it odd that the hundreds of people felt the need to film the concert themselves despite it being taped on professional cameras for a TV show airing only hours later?

Trust me, I get it. We are a society of documenters and sharers. Whether it’s Prom, Snowball, or a concert, we want to make sure that everyone knows what we’re doing and that we ourselves remember in the future. But by documenting what would be memorable moments through our phones, we’re making them less memorable.

Take the Eagles’ Nate Sudfeld, who was documenting the Super Bowl championship parade on his own iPhone, despite the hired media from the Eagles organization and the local media filming the scope of the event from hundreds of angles in real time. Why did Sudfeld need to take the documenting into his own hands?  

Another example came on New Years Eve’, when I scrolled through more than two dozen Snapchat stories of friends who just recorded the screen during the countdown to 2018 on ABC’s Dick Clark’s Rockin Eve with Ryan Seacrest. Why do we feel the need to document and share a broadcast anyone pulling can easily pull up on YouTube if they want to?

Today, recalling our favorite memories is as easy as scrolling back on our Instagram pages or pulling up an old Snapchat memory. We film these events with the intent of going back to relive and remember them, as though we wouldn’t remember our friend’s birthday party or the best plate at a restaurant. We should be more concerned with enjoying where we are and what we are doing and less concerned with preserving the memory of those things. Snapchat and Instagram stories have turned us into documenting zombies who constantly fear the feeling of not sharing something awesome that happened in our lives. The reality is, most of the people will just tap through the photo you just shared without a second thought.

I’m not judging anyone, either. I’m guilty of it, too. We are hoarders with photos and videos and feel the need to have a physical remembrance of an event. The technology that lets us connect with people not present by sharing what we’re doing has disconnected us from the people who we are present with. By putting a screen between ourselves and the action, we are remembering the events in the moment even less.

During Snowball, a dance circle broke out. I was there with my camera, documenting it for Yearbook and WordsWorth, but I noticed that everyone else around the circle was also documenting it for their own social media and camera rolls.
In turn, I challenge everyone at Prom this week to take a few pictures at the dance to capture a moment, but don’t capture the entire night. There are photographers specifically assigned to do the documenting, so sit back and enjoy. Those pictures will help you jog your memory on all the things you experienced that night, instead of being the only thing you experienced that night. Capture the moment, but then live in it.

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