Say it Louder: Enjoy the moment

Whether it’s something about school, being a student, or a social issue, columnist Emma Cramption tries to make sure her message is heard in her weekly column “Say it Louder”.

When going out with friends, I love to take pictures and videos to remember the moment and reflect back on good times that I’ve had. However, there always seems to be someone that seems to cross the line when it comes to social media in social situations.

If you can only remember the moments that are saved in your camera roll, you might be this person. I’m all about taking pictures and videos with friends, but sometimes you have to remember that actually living the moment is a whole lot better than watching it later on your phone screen. It’s very important that you choose the moments to capture with a camera and the ones you’ll just save in your head. Honestly, the best experiences I’ve had are the ones where I forget to pick up my phone.

This is something that I admittedly need to work on myself. I’m the type of person that takes a lot of pictures so I can look back on moments where I really felt happy. I don’t see anything wrong with this, but I do believe that taking less will allow me to experience moments more.

The main reason why we all tend to do this is that we see everybody else posting pictures and videos at a good time out with people and we feel the need to do the same so that we aren’t left out, or so that it doesn’t appear to others that we have no life. The problem with this is that we are living for others and not ourselves. To keep up our image, we have to show everyone that we too go out and have fun.

It’s all about moderation. I’m not saying we should all stop taking pictures with our friends and putting them on social media, because that would be unrealistic and hypocritical. I’m just saying that if we all try to actually live in the moment a little bit more, we might end up having much better experiences.