Aadrita Chatterji

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The writer doesn’t blame her contemporaries for being chronically online; after all, it’s the need of the hour. She posted a series of self-photographs the other day, and someone commented, “How are you a millennial?” Millennials and Gen Z are notoriously always on their phones, and they need to capture everything in a photo or a video. Our conversations are rarely interrupted by random strangers, but by our devices. When we eat out, we want the perfect overhead shot of our food. When we meet a friend, we scramble to take a selfie before saying hi. When we’re on vacation, we post pictures right then and there, opening our homes to security risks.

The Need To Stay Relevant Online

Being a millennial, the writer understands how dependent we are on our phones, laptops and iPads. We are expected to be on social media. We are expected to create a digital presence. We are expected to engage with our audience online. Our social media profiles have become curated displays of our lives: the brands we wear, the cafés we visit, the people we hang out with and where we work. Such metrics show us what we receive from society; as human beings, we crave community with our school, college and colleague groups. Otherwise, we’re all alone.

Of course, not everyone has active social media profiles. Some people with little online presence live equally fulfilling lives. On the other hand, keeping up with the trends is a trend. The writer remembers that when she was on holiday in Darjeeling, she lived near the iconic Keventers. No matter the time of day, the street was always full of people photographing themselves in front of the restaurant’s logo. Her husband showed her multiple pictures on social media, showing how many people considered a Darjeeling holiday incomplete without this. He said, very seriously, you could get cancelled.

What Do We Miss If We’re Constantly Posting?

When we constantly validate our lives on our devices, we take away the joy of the moment. When the writer meets her few friends, they often forget to take a picture until before they leave.  They focus on catching up in the moment, talking about what interests them. The writer has almost no photographs with her husband on social media, but they are still husband and wife. Relationships don’t stop existing if there are no pictures online, which becomes a major source of disagreement for many friends and couples. There’s a difference in expectations.

Opening up our lives to the social media jungle also leads to external opinions and judgements, which nobody likes. Updating our live locations, photo dumps, and fellow travellers unsuspectingly opens our personal spaces to mischief-makers. We don’t know what someone might do with that information: our homes are empty, and our supervisors don’t know that we’re holidaying in Bali while on sick leave. Also, let’s not forget that constantly posting and responding to people annoy our fellow travellers, to say the least.

Maybe We Need To Be Present In The Moment

Celebrity weddings have required guests to leave their phones with security during their ceremonies, especially in Bollywood. There is, of course, privacy that comes with being a well-known person, but it also encourages people to enjoy. One can well take their OOTD photographs outside the venue and post them when they get home. Our followers won’t unfollow us if we are two hours late to go online, and that is a sign we need to stop live-posting and start engaging with our fellow guests, who are also without their phones.

The writer takes photographs on dates and vacations, but she waits until the event is over before she even considers posting them. Heck, she posted three wedding photographs almost a month after she got married. She focused on enjoying being the new wife and daughter-in-law, and kept such moments strictly for family and close acquaintances. Performing or curating for the world outside takes away spontaneity and starts a discussion about whether we look happy enough, our in-laws hugged us close enough, or the house was decorated well enough.

Having a life offline doesn’t mean being unsocial, especially when the writer took seventy photographs of herself before choosing three for her social media. However, there is a difference between clicking pictures for one’s memory and posting everything almost immediately to impress our audience. Take some time before going online, preferably a week or ten days. We should give ourselves time to select photographs that do mean something to us, instead of simply dumping them on our audience. When we treat our space as sacred, we protect our digital privacy and our relationships.

Our life is not a livestream; let us not cater to the algorithm anymore.