I’m always astonished by people who have lived a whole century. It’s even amazing to be a grandparent these days because they have gone from driving metal death boxes with no shock absorbency or seat belts to Teslas. I have begun to reflect upon my 19 years on this Earth, and I've realized how much technological advancement I’ve already witnessed. I recall being in 5th grade and being stimulated by the unified societal sentiment of sheer amazement. A cell phone could have a touch screen! Welcome iPhone! RIP Nokia.
So now we live in a world where the tech industry has transcended merely making devices. Now these screens employ an endless amount of apps to keep us connected and entertained for centuries. As Millennials, we are tightly networked with our friends through a vast array of social media apps, which continues to evolve and grow right before our eyes.
In particular, Snapchat never ceases to impress me. I get the basic concept: take a timed photo and send it to some buddies, maybe with a witty caption. But it's so much more nuanced because there are all of these unspoken rules and regulations. It's hard to handle all of the social stress that comes with learning the proper etiquette. All of this damn social media has expectations of how you should act. When I first made a Facebook account in middle school, I thought it was cool to steal photos from other people's albums to create my own albums. Don't worry, I still gave them credit by tagging them in every photo.
So it's no surprise that my social suavity yielded this hot mess. Here’s 10th grade me thinking that I’m super hilarious.
This was before I knew how to save snaps. Yes, that is a very rudimentary skill, but that's a me problem. I'm also not quite sure why I thought this one was worth saving, but remember this interface?! It looks ancient. The large SEND button from the Dark Ages. This was also a time long before the MyStory feature--where Snap was simply sending pictures.
Now we have all of these snazzy geotags, filters, and time stamps. Who knew that one day we would have the option to puke rainbows and morph into canines? We even have face swap (creating creatures from Hell). We can even send sketchy disappearing messages to people for undercover content, which is most definitely being recorded on some database.
I miss the days when we could see who was best friends with whom on Snap. You would stumble upon surprising combinations--omg I can't believe puppies123 is best friends with tennislovr96. They don't even hang out.
Snap has presented us with a controversial feature: the endless MyStory stream. You don't touch a thing, and before you know it, the rando that you met on vacation is belting T-Swift in the car with the windows down right on your screen. I mean at least this new update allows us to video chat with those damn people who don't have FaceTime (which is definitely the most effective means of communication). Damn, Snap coming at me with some more updates. I swear, I never expect what's coming.