Sam, Snap Out of It!
Seriously? That's the one thing? And intimacy? That's what your ascribing? You need to snap out of it. Snapchat is not intimate. Snapchat is the ADD version of the old "wassup" commercial - nonsense repeated over and over again by the lazy, the self-involved, and the damaged.
A little harsh? OK, I'll take that hit. But I'm not entirely wrong, and not entirely sorry to be making that generalization. What I will concede is that Facebook and Twitter and Instagram are no different, no better, no worse, just different forms of the same foolishness, and I use all of these social media platforms, so I'm no purist.
But I'm no hypocrite either. I know I'm being vacuous when I use these instruments. The fact is that all the time we spend kidding ourselves into thinking that sending a message via Snapchat is somehow useful, meaningful time we could be doing something actually useful and meaningful. Ask yourself whether you'd prefer to get ten messages on Snapchat from a friend, or whether you'd prefer to see your friend for coffee, have a laugh, smile at one another over an inside joke. If you don't have time for the coffee, and can't make time for the friend, how intimate is the relationship? If it's only 30-seconds-a-day-deep is it really anything at all? If you lose those 30 seconds of attention each day, or fail to deliver that 30-second 'I am thinking about you' message are either of you really affected? Honestly? No.
Intimacy is a heavy word and it exists in the realm of the real, not in the fleeting and emoji-laden hemisphere of hand-held-devices. Also, I'm fascinated by this idea that you think the supposed intimacy of Snapchat without the lingering effect of permanence that other social media forms provides is somehow preferable. Say what? You have a lot to learn about intimacy.
I think part of what skews the experience for us is that I have both life before social media and life after and my sense of what is proper intimate communication stems from there. Without the comparison, I think you lose perspective. So, in the interest of fairness, would you indulge me? We have postcards and envelopes at home. Take a few minutes one evening, address ten of them to ten friends, put a stamp on each envelope, and each night write a quick note - just a few lines if that's all you have time for - to one of those friends. Take a few extra minutes out of your day for ten days and send those postcards out to those ten friends. Then, reflect a little on whether the experience of sending those postcards (and, one would presume, receiving them) was more or less satisfying than the same exercise of connecting using Snapchat. I think you might be surprised at the results.
Until then, I remain unimpressed and unmoved. Picture me snapping my fingers. In a Z formation. ~C.
A little harsh? OK, I'll take that hit. But I'm not entirely wrong, and not entirely sorry to be making that generalization. What I will concede is that Facebook and Twitter and Instagram are no different, no better, no worse, just different forms of the same foolishness, and I use all of these social media platforms, so I'm no purist.
But I'm no hypocrite either. I know I'm being vacuous when I use these instruments. The fact is that all the time we spend kidding ourselves into thinking that sending a message via Snapchat is somehow useful, meaningful time we could be doing something actually useful and meaningful. Ask yourself whether you'd prefer to get ten messages on Snapchat from a friend, or whether you'd prefer to see your friend for coffee, have a laugh, smile at one another over an inside joke. If you don't have time for the coffee, and can't make time for the friend, how intimate is the relationship? If it's only 30-seconds-a-day-deep is it really anything at all? If you lose those 30 seconds of attention each day, or fail to deliver that 30-second 'I am thinking about you' message are either of you really affected? Honestly? No.
Intimacy is a heavy word and it exists in the realm of the real, not in the fleeting and emoji-laden hemisphere of hand-held-devices. Also, I'm fascinated by this idea that you think the supposed intimacy of Snapchat without the lingering effect of permanence that other social media forms provides is somehow preferable. Say what? You have a lot to learn about intimacy.
I think part of what skews the experience for us is that I have both life before social media and life after and my sense of what is proper intimate communication stems from there. Without the comparison, I think you lose perspective. So, in the interest of fairness, would you indulge me? We have postcards and envelopes at home. Take a few minutes one evening, address ten of them to ten friends, put a stamp on each envelope, and each night write a quick note - just a few lines if that's all you have time for - to one of those friends. Take a few extra minutes out of your day for ten days and send those postcards out to those ten friends. Then, reflect a little on whether the experience of sending those postcards (and, one would presume, receiving them) was more or less satisfying than the same exercise of connecting using Snapchat. I think you might be surprised at the results.
Until then, I remain unimpressed and unmoved. Picture me snapping my fingers. In a Z formation. ~C.
Comments
Post a Comment