I think this posts discussion of “why do we take photos” is really great and deserves more consideration. I’ve not had any form of social media account for over 8 years and something I notice is that I just take waaay fewer photos than everyone else I know. A few on vacation or when I see something stupid I can turn into a pun or a joke. Seriously maybe 3-5 photos per month.
I love living this way and consider it healthy and normal for a wide variety of people in most modern life circumstances. I think the need to take dozens of photos of vacation/meal/baby/lifestyle is seriously a universally bad mental state for humans, and one that people will stubbornly try in vain to argue is somehow acceptable or ok.
If sitting is the new smoking, then social media photo sharing is the new vaping.
This is interesting, because I do not have social media but take a TON of pictures and videos of my kids (4 years old and 4.months old).... I send some to family via group texts, but most just sit on my phone/computer/cloud until I look at them.
I take so many for a few reasons. One, I think they are crazy cute and want to take pictures and videos when I see them doing cute things. Two, my 4 year old loves looking at them... she wants to see videos of herself all the time, and cracks up seeing herself as a baby.
Three, I don't do a baby book but want to be able to remember how they were at these ages when they are older. It is already trippy/fun to look at pictures and videos of my daughter at 4 months and compare them to her baby brother now. It is fun to watch old videos and see the first bits and pieces of the kid I love now.
99% of the pictures and videos haven't been looked at by anyone but me and my daughter, but I am SO glad I have them.
I’m sure that your use case for so many photos is fine and just rooted in your family’s specific hobbies in a way that social media image sharing totally isn’t.
At the same time though, I think a ton of people use the excuse “because KIDS” to justify all manner of things. Just because kids enjoy something doesn’t in any way endorse it as constructive, healthy or a good or worthwhile habit or activity.
What’s your backup strategy? I’m paranoid of losing my pictures. I have one regular backup drive, one offsite backup drive I sync once a week and several cloud backups.
I am also paranoid... I copy all the photos to my computer hard drive every few days, and use backblaze to back up my hard drive. I also have a local backup drive.
I also periodically upload archives of my photos and videos to Amazon glacier
I actually think there are two main camps here: people who take photos to share to their followers, and people who take photos for their own recollection and to share with the people closest to them (e.g. family photo albums).
I totally agree that the former is toxic and damages our mental health in many ways, like a digital version of smoking and vaping.
I recently launched a tool for our generation to manage and maintain a healthy relationship with social media - it moves away from the current trend of superficiality that exists on FB and IG right now.
I think your tool is very cool and building tools for recreational image libraries is super neat. But I can’t agree with you that “a healthy relationship with social media” is a possible state of affairs apart from wholesale avoidance of social media. There is simply too much asymmetry information advantage for platform maintainers (even in decentralized cases) for it to be possible.
Could you elaborate on what you mean by "asymmetry information advantage"?
Personally, I've used tons of social media services growing up - AIM, MSN Messenger, GChat, G+, Blogspot, FB, IG, etc. I think all of them have positive traits, at least had positive traits when they started out. I've also experienced a healthy balance between online relationships and in-personal relationships. I just think it's super critical for our generation to move back to platforms that are healthier and better for our mental and social wellbeing.
I think AIM / MSN Messenger etc. don’t remotely qualify as social media, but already it feels like we’re veering into unproductive debate. My position is that “healthy” and “social media” don’t mix. There is no positive subset of Facebook. The entire conceptual value proposition of the platform is unhealthy from first principles. It requires you to trust a provider with data in such a manner that this trust is, literally by definition, unobtainable. Just can’t be done. The type of draconian HIPAA-like legal framework (plus untold billions spent on enforcement & compliance) that represents the minimum requirement is just not compatible with the existence of a corporation that makes money from being a repository and sharing platform for this data.
As a person with aphantasia, I will not be able to remember what my children looked like, sounded like, or acted like growing up unless I have pictures and videos.
I don't think it's harmful for me to try to preserve some of that, since I don't have the neurological wiring to use my brain for that job.
Actually that condition seems fairly irrelevant to this discussion entirely. Nobody’s suggesting don’t take photos. Just that quantity, subject matter and frequency of public sharing are all affected very negatively by social media.
Taking dozens of photos of “instagram-worthy” restaurant meals or “lifestyle achievement” vacation photos has utterly nothing at all to do with an imagery recognition photo journal. These are the sorts of totally discardable, consumer excess images that even people without aphantasia cannot recall mental imagery or visual memory of since it occupies such a “one time use” or “share it and throw it away” position in social media behavior.
I love living this way and consider it healthy and normal for a wide variety of people in most modern life circumstances. I think the need to take dozens of photos of vacation/meal/baby/lifestyle is seriously a universally bad mental state for humans, and one that people will stubbornly try in vain to argue is somehow acceptable or ok.
If sitting is the new smoking, then social media photo sharing is the new vaping.