If life isn’t lived through a lens, is it lived at all?
It’s easy to moan about compulsive Instagrammers — but is ‘‘living in the moment’’ really all that great? asks
ARE you properly experiencing this moment? You know, making the most of it? Here you are, leafing through a Sunday newspaper, or browsing articles online on some stateoftheart device. That’s not too shabby: ‘‘Syria, dear oh dear; Brexit, hmm; an exhibition — I shall consider attending!’’
This is part of who you are — you’re really doing this. You should ‘‘own it’’, as they say these days, demonstrating capitalism’s colonisation of language itself.
So how can you most fully know, feel, experience and indeed project this fact, this moment that you’re in? How best to consciously, but not selfconsciously, inhabit it — to immerse yourself in it, but not let it thoughtlessly pass by, as if it never happened at all, as if you never existed, your constituent carbon already earmarked for different biomass: some worms and beetles and weeds. Plus a couple of rats if you’re lucky. Or one of those forest trees that doesn’t even necessarily make a noise when it falls down.
Yes, other people knowing might help. It’s bound to. It’ll prove this isn’t all a delusion — they can confirm it’s genuinely happening. Unless they’re a delusion, too, and there really isn’t time to get into that. People say it’s solipsistic which, from usage, seems to mean ‘‘best not thought about’’. Unlike all the plastic in the sea, which is very troubling, and let’s hope someone noticed you reading a report on that as you sipped your Fairtrade espresso in an independent coffee shop while shaking your head sadly — no mean feat in itself.
Existing in a maelstrom of documentation, it’s easy to feel that a memory isn’t evidence enough that something happened
Perhaps you should take a photo, and put it on social media? Not a grinning selfie — that would be tonally wrong for the coffee house sophistication you want to put across. Put across because you’re genuinely feeling it, of course. How about a sort of POV shot? The coffee cup, the open newspaper, a sprinkling of croissant crumbs.
Ooh, not the page about the Grenfell inquiry — that doesn’t feel right. Turn that over. One with a nice picture of a sunlit field, or a beach or a castle, and some lighter stories. That’s it — resprinkle the croissant crumbs and . . . is that the time? Quick, you’ve got to go in a minute. And . . . move the car key out of shot. It’s a Ford so not . . . I mean, an Alfa Romeo key would . . . Anyway, there we go: snap. Hashtag LazyWeekend hashtag chilling. Christ, you’re really late now.
This urge to selfphotograph and upload, to document and publish our every significant experience, was in the news again recently when it was reported that several holiday companies are marketing ‘‘Instagramfriendly tours’’, catering for ‘‘ego travellers’’ among the millennial generation. This came hard on the heels of Thomas Cook’s announcement that it’s ‘‘exploring options for the future’’ of Club 1830, options that include selling it. So, millennials would rather pull a duck face in front of Machu Picchu than go to Magaluf for 30 units of alcohol a day and an increased chance of contracting herpes. The message seems to be: young people today are still awful, but in a different way.
Irritation at relentless holiday photography has its roots in mildly xenophobic 1980s moaning about Japanese tourists with stovepipe cameras, but has greatly intensified in the era of the smartphone. ‘‘Why can’t they just experience it?!’’ goes the middleaged cry. ‘‘If you’re photographing or filming something, you’re not immersed in it. Just look and remember.’’
This view is backed up by research. A 2013 study found that people who went round a museum photographing things, rather than just looking at them, remembered much less about what they’d seen. But of course they’ve got pictures of everything, so they don’t need to. And a 2017 review of research ‘‘Exploring the Links between Mobile Technology Habits and Cognitive Functioning’’ found that our brains aren’t bothering to retain stuff if they think we’ll be able to access it through our devices. Certainly Google Maps is playing havoc with my ability to find my way around town without it. Then again, I also can’t start a fire without matches and have no idea how to skin an animal, so my whole notrelyingontechnology ship has long since sailed.
Despite all this, I have sympathy for the obsessive photographers. Existing as we do in a maelstrom of documentation, it’s easy to feel that a memory isn’t evidence enough that something happened. It’s too dreamlike. I try to walk for an hour every day as exercise, and my phone automatically logs a distance and step count. As a result, I have come to feel, if not quite believe, that if I go for a walk without my phone, it hasn’t really happened. I won’t see it in the app, so how can I get the benefit? It would be like trying to claim money back without a receipt.
I agree that the best way to enjoy a holiday is to unselfconsciously ‘‘be in the moment’’. But the trouble is, once it’s occurred to you to take a picture, whatever you then do is already selfconscious. Taking it or not taking it. In fact you could argue that, by that point, it’s more unselfconscious to take the photo, rather than to deliberately suppress the urge and stand there, phone hand twitching, telling yourself it’s mindfulness.
I generally find that tourists who relentlessly photograph their experiences, instead of just living them, nevertheless seem quite content with their choice. Meanwhile, the justrememberit brigade spend a lot of time crossly muttering about other people’s cameraphones — partly because their view of the waterfall/fireworks/temple/car crash is being obstructed, but largely because the rest of the human race is just incredibly annoying. Neither group is ‘‘in the moment’’, but at least the former gets some nice photos.
Both are placing too much emphasis on memories: is it better to have a comprehensive photographic record to look at, or a memory unsullied by artificial preservatives? But I don’t think memories are the point of a holiday. Remembering something fun that’s finished is sad. What’s nice about a holiday, apart from actually going on it, is looking forward to it. It’s anticipation of next weekend, not memories or photographs of last, that gets you through the working week. — The Observer