Do you remember the time before social media, when your best friend would go on holiday, and upon her return you would go and look through her holiday snaps?
That, according to my children, was the ‘olden days’. My seven year old physically snorted recently when I told him that I would spend hours with my Auntie Margo looking at her most recent trips to Skegness. He questioned why she didn’t upload them to Facebook so I could look at them at my leisure and skip though the boring ones.
Our children will never have to endure the fear of when their parents book a late holiday deal to the South of France, knowing that upon their return they will be invited to watch their holiday shots projected onto the living room wall. Instead they will be able to choose to look or ignore them when they pop up in their G+, Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram or Twitter feed.
The irony is, I used to spend ages inventing reasons to not go and look at peoples holiday photos. But, I spend forever nosing through Facebook, checking out where people I have not spoken to in years have just been on vacation.
I subscribe to an Instagram feed, and can happily lose hours of the day, cooing over pictures of ‘social’ friends actually on holiday. I live their trip with them and in many cases, have never met them.
So what has changed?
How I have changed from someone who would feel physical dread at the thought of looking through someone’s holiday pictures to someone who eagerly clicks through the images on Facebook and Twitter.
The pressure has gone.
Without the photographer stood by my side, eagerly awaiting my comments, I can ogle their family photos at leisure. Commenting where I feel appropriate, ignoring pictures that don’t grab my attention. No one thinks I am a rude if I don’t ‘like’ a shot of little Johnny going for a dip in the pool, but everyone loves it when I leave a little comment saying ‘holiday looks ace!’.
I reckon social media has saved holiday photos, what do you think?
This is a guest post.
