You take 100-200 photos of you and your friends at the beach, yet you only post one or two. Photos are supposed to capture a specific memory. If photos can so easily be edited, cropped, deleted, and restored are they even that valuable? One may argue that digital photos are so valuable because they can be shared. However, the ability to send photos can also come with many consequences.  “Gathered around a table covered in dozens of red plastic cups, a group of young people grinned widely, posing for a photo,” said Washington Post employee Allyson Chiu. “Their arms are extended out in what appears to be a Nazi salute.” This is a prime example of how one photo ruined a group of teenagers’ lives.

You go to a concert and but can barely see the stage over the wave of phones over peoples heads. The accessibility of digital photos creates a generation detached from the moment. Worrying about remembering the moment instead of living it makes pictures and moments lose their meaning. Teenagers have recently been turning to disposable cameras and Polaroids for a more vintage feel. Hopefully, this new trend will help people focus more on capturing the memory they are making instead of focusing on the picture.

You take a selfie of you and your friends before homecoming. You don’t like the first photo so you reposition yourself and take it again. Wasted time to get the picture right could be used to make a better memory to connect with the picture. The “take it again” culture is what creates such a disconnect between social media and reality appearances. The downfalls of digital only become more apparent as time progresses and technology advances.

Pictures should be taken to remember a special occasion. When pictures are taken at every occasion, they lose their value and the memory connected. Digital is just a watered down memory.