I am embarrassed to admit this, but there was a time in my life when I had about 20 Snapstreaks. I was absolutely addicted to Snapchat. Every 5 seconds my phone would light up with a notification that so-and-so had snapped me. I felt the need to constantly be on my phone and respond as soon as someone replied to my snap. I would close my eyes and see the little white ghost. It was bad.
I didn’t realize until last year, my freshman year of college, how much I disliked Snapchat. Being away from home and my friends for the first time was tough. It took me a while to feel comfortable in a friend group and even though I ended up making great friends, I still missed my friends from home a lot. I found that Snapchat was the one way that I was staying in touch with people. Then I realized sending selfies back and forth wasn’t really staying in touch. There were rarely any words exchanged over Snap. It was just random photos that sometimes were literally black screens, for those times when you were fighting with people but needed the streak to stay alive.
I decided that this was just ridiculous. I wanted to actually have conversations with people and know what was going on in their lives, so I decided to start texting people. When did Snapchat become the new texting and texting become as intimate as a phone call?
I found that people would not respond to my texts and respond to my Snaps instead. It was the strangest thing! So, after seeing all my friends over Thanksgiving break, I decided to delete Snapchat. If I did not have Snapchat, people would have to respond to my texts, and it worked! People were giving me lengthy replies and even texting asking to Facetime instead. It even lead to people reaching out to me first because they realized how distant they had grown from not seeing my face every day.
Honestly, I know how hard it can be to watch that little flame by someone’s name disappear, but I am telling you, it is so worth it in the long run. You will have better conversations with people and actually get to know more than what a selfie can tell you. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but a thousand words are also worth a thousand words. Think about that!
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