Around September of 2015, just as I had begun my journey as a freshman at TCNJ, I realized that I wasn’t as happy as I had expected to be. There were endless opportunities for friendships in front of me, but I found myself taking the time between classes, or even in classes, scrolling through the Internet on my computer or through my apps on my phone.
I was spending so much time worrying about what everybody else was doing, rather than seizing the new possibilities in front of me. It was habit for me to scroll down my twitter or constantly check people’s Snapchat stories. What was I turning into?
It was then that I realized, with help from a friend at school, that I was going to delete my Snapchat and Twitter apps from my phone. My friend took my phone, and I took his, and we changed each other’s passwords – so that we KNEW we weren’t going to go on them. This was a “break” from social media that I wanted to take.
6 months later, I have yet to log into my Snapchat. Although I can’t say the same for Twitter (I needed it for business reasons), I did take a 4-month break from it.
There’s something about Snapchat that is so unlike all other forms of social media. Snapchat stories are pictures or videos that you share with your friends, and it may seem so similar to Instagram to an outsider. However, it’s not like Instagram at all. People post Snapchat stories that are MINUTES long. It’s a way for people to show their friends list what they are doing, and in turn – what the friend that is watching is NOT doing.
During the period in September where I was so obsessed with watching other’s Snapchat stories it was because I was interested in knowing what my friends from home were doing away at their new colleges. But, there was always this underlying layer of comparison. Is my school as fun as theirs? Are they going to more parties than I am? Do they already have more friends?
The Snapchat culture is different than what I see on Instagram and Twitter. I’ll walk around the dining hall and hear people saying, “did you see Sasha last night in Dan’s Snapchat story?” People can be seen in the back of these stories, where as an Instagram is usually chosen specifically or even posed, and a tweet is typically words of a thought process or opinion.
I see no problem with those who adore Snapchat, for I know that many of my friends use it more than they’d like to admit. However, the past 6 months of my life have been a lot happier without the worry of creating a “story” or the jealousy that comes with watching other’s every move. I hope our generation can come to understand that the world is much bigger than social media.