I have over 15,000 photos in my camera roll documenting my childhood, trips overseas, concerts, high school prom and graduation, movies, meals, holidays and countless other experiences and highlights from my life. It seems like I could make an infinite slideshow from the pictures on my phone. 

While the number of photos may seem over the top, it is not rare among my friends. I know people with three times as many pictures as I have. Smartphone users often choose to document their lives so constantly that very little goes uncaptured. The worst tear-filled days are captured alongside the best ones.  

The belief that everything should be recorded has echoed throughout society, but most prevalently on social media platforms. It’s a common idea on Instagram and TikTok that one must take a ‘picture, or it didn’t happen,’ and parents post their children’s every achievement to their Facebook feeds. At concerts, instead of dancing to music, attendees hold their iPhone cameras above their heads, recording to relive the moment later. People behave as if they don’t capture an event, it will be impossible to prove the experience actually took place.  

Every moment is captured, and a photo isn’t only a memory anymore; it’s an extension of self. The line between the person you are in real life and the person in your camera roll has blurred. 

In middle school, I had a YouTube channel. I took it very seriously, filming and editing videos weekly. With a pandemic at hand and a dream of going viral, I walked around my house with an Amazon ring light and an iPhone camera. I filmed morning routines and taste tests, challenges and tips, tutorials and unboxings and anything I thought would get a click. In the process of editing countless hours of footage, I learned who I was, who others saw me as and what I looked and sounded like when explaining something or telling a joke. There was something so fascinating about being able to see myself through an almost third-person perspective. Instant replay allowed me to witness myself as a distinct person: an extension of self. 

Constant casual photography allows people to take control over the way in which they are perceived online. They control which angle is shown, which smile is more appealing and which friends they prioritize in the order of photos in a seven-slide carousel. Research from Georgetown University analyzed how photography allows “self-construction” and contributes to “subjective self-identity.” Objective reality, once photographed, becomes a subjective portrayal of self. The photo becomes independent of its subject while simultaneously representing its subject. 

But this presents a problem: what happens when you do not want to be photographed? Sometimes the version of self in a photo is inaccurate.  The universal ability to record everything can fall into the wrong hands, with irreversible consequences. Innocent citizens wandering grocery store aisles are now recorded by influencers, being asked if they want to “double it and give it to the next person.” Nowhere is safe from the lens of a camera.

While some people may hold the belief that a silly picture is “just a photo,” it is vital to recognize its power. We should not normalize recording and keeping images of others without their approval, even if it seems harmless. When photos are an extension of self, like they are in the present day, they become a subjective reality. Photos and videos used to accompany stories; now they are the story, and the stories they tell can exist outside of the truth. We should refrain from thinking it is societally acceptable to document others in public spaces without their consent. When someone asks you to delete a photo, you should.  

Modern photography can change someone’s understanding of who they are, because it changed mine. While I found the ability to see myself through a camera interesting, others may want to keep that avenue closed, and that desire should be respected. Let photos be a means to document your life and appreciate the privilege we have to record every moment. Next time you look into the lens of a camera, realize the person looking back at you is more than a memory; it’s a representation of who you are.