We live in a smartphone age.
Whatever we feel about being able to receive and respond to emails, make videos and update Facebook through our mobile phones, we have to address the reality that these shiny new tools are changing the way we live, work and interact.
Technology always has done this, from the spade with which Cain worked the earth to the coffee machines and the Playstations that appear in our homes. Over 2 billion people own a smartphone, and over 300 million people actively use the Instagram application each month.
Posting images
Making use of the high-quality cameras built into most smartphones, Instagram is a social network offering a platform for sharing photographs straight from the phone, often with one of several filters applied to it, altering the mood and tone of the photograph. It displays images chronologically, dating them by how many days or weeks ago they were posted, and involves ‘following’ and being ‘followed’ by other users.
A user taps the heart icon in order to show approval of the image posted, and a little comments section allows for small interactions on each upload. Like all things we humans create, it can on one hand be an agent of goodness and truth, and on the other hand be a vessel for sin and unreality.
One aspect for which I love Instagram is the way it creates a catalogue of memories that hold some significance for me. I scroll through my account and see a chronology of moments and things I am thankful to God for, which have brought me closer to joy and nearer to Jesus. I go back and back to 34 weeks ago, 52 weeks ago and see images from occasions I’ve forgotten and they renew my thankfulness.
The peaceful sleep of my niece at one week old, the surprise party for a friend after he graduated from his Master’s degree, the heaven-scented buddleia from the bottom of the garden that has now faded and turned brown.
Remembering my story
On a personal level, this way of collecting photos of moments helps me to remember my story, to piece different parts of my life together, and to wonder at God’s kindness in giving such good and beautiful gifts to one so wretched as I.
On a public level, Instagram enables users to show off and share the beauty of creation, nature, design, art. Sometimes that worthy declaration of the beauty with which God has filled his creation gets warped into presenting ‘beauty’ on the world’s terms and produces a generally unrealistic account of life. Users choose which parts of their life to tell and exert control over the narrative they convey. It is a product of a generation that consumes the aesthetic obsessively, to the extent that it is becoming the primary mode of communication.
Missing the moment
Sometimes, taking a photo means that in our hurry to capture and save something, we actually miss out on being present. This poses a threat to community and relationships. Through Instagram, is it possible that we’re using other people to validate our existence and affirm our identity? The ‘selfie’ trend is the nub of the issue. We choose the face we want others to see, run it through a filter and send it into cyberspace to be ‘liked’ by our followers.
Telling real stories
How much more could be gained if we instead used Instagram to tell real stories and engage peoples’ hearts and minds, rather than chase after their ‘likes’. It seems to be becoming more and more permissible to pull out our phones and gaze at their bright screens during a real-life conversation, to casually see if we’ve been liked, followed or retweeted while our friend is speaking. We want to be always available to everyone, everywhere, at all times – isn’t this the lie Adam and Eve fell for in the garden? Our smartphones promise us that we can be like God, and we will not surely die (Genesis 3.4). In our quest to be omnipotent, we instead become vague and unavailable to the person who is made in God’s image and is standing in front of us. Useful though it is in continuing our relationships, social media cannot represent us as wholeheartedly as our fully embodied, present selves can. The New Testament ideal is that face to face should always take priority over the disembodied relating we can do online. Let’s resolve to love and value others better by remembering our truest, shared image, and do all that we can to usher that out of one another, beginning by fighting to be fully present – right where we are.
