“Why do people snapchat?,” I asked various friends over Thanksgiving break and at Midd. “It’s fun!” “It’s funny.” “I like to see what people are up to.” “It lets me share what I’m doing with friends.” My next question, and a question I usually only ask myself internally, is do people realize how Snapchat affects their every day lives? In such negative ways.

Given, this is coming from Sarah Gledhill, an active proponent of putting down technology to center oneself, but I really do think that people have caught on to a trend without realizing the consequences of it. We need to be more aware of how our decisions with technology affect our lives.

Over break, I had the pleasure of seeing a lot of old friends from high school. We went to an MGMT concert on Wednesday night, and I kept noticing something: in the middle of conversations, my friends would completely zone out of what I was saying to make a funny face at their camera phone to send to a friend on Snapchat. They stared at their screens to record the concert in short segments just to send it to someone who would see it once and then never again. At a party I went to on Friday night, it felt like every ten minutes I saw someone take a “selfie” on Snapchat to send to someone who wasn’t at the party. Snapchat, I realized, had a profound affect on my own Thanksgiving break despite the fact that I don’t even have it. Numerous conversations I had were rudely interrupted by the app, which took away from the very short, precious time that I had with these people I don’t get to see very often.

I guess my overall opinion of the application is that SNAPCHAT IS WACK. It interrupts your life constantly throughout the day, it pushes the people you are actually with away, it encourages people to constantly document their lives rather than to just live them, and, honestly, it disrupts your psyche. Snapchat makes people distracted, disconnected, and rude. If no one had it, we would all have better conversations and more quality time with each other.

The other side of the argument, I find, isn’t too appealing. People always counter my arguments with, “It’s just really fun.” Sure, maybe seeing what other people are up to is “fun,” maybe some of your friends send hilarious selfies, but it fosters a type of social combativeness that I don’t enjoy. I’ve been photographed in numerous Snapchats sent to people I don’t know – why are people allowed to do that? To take a picture of the people you’re with to show to someone else? I would so much rather not be “shown” off in a Snapchat. For me, it’s a sign of lack of self-confidence. The ability to be where you are with the people you’re with without needing to know what others are doing or needing to show others what you’re doing is being comfortable with yourself, and Snapchat encourages the very opposite.

I’m ranting. I’m making generalizations. But I don’t care. Snapchat is wack, and I’m waiting for someone to offer an argument that will change my mind.