It’s Saturday evening and you are sitting at home in your pajamas. You throw some popcorn in the microwave and settle in for a Netflix night when your phone beeps.

“Can we do something? I want to post a picture.”

These words are commonplace in messages between teenagers. Kids don’t want to spend time together for real socialization, but to improve their social presence.

Current high school students have never known a life without social media. Starting with MySpace in middle school, posting has been a part of our daily agenda since sixth grade.

In some ways, this makes us better. Social media allows us to meet people and hear news from around the world. Scrolling through a timeline, you can see how different cultures live and read others’ viewpoints.

Social media isn’t the problem. The problem is how it’s being used.

Instead of going somewhere, we can just look at pictures online. Why get out and explore the world when you can view it from your bed through Snapchat stories?

As for those who do leave their room, the pressure of capturing the moment in a creative post with the perfect filter overshadows the actual experience. True happiness is replaced with whatever looks best through a camera lens.

We are so caught up in perfecting our social media presence for later, we forget to enjoy things in the now.

While social media can project life’s events, it should not be the only way that life is viewed. It is important to stay logged in to humans’ original media source: memories.

Go to Friday football games to show school pride, not to make a Snapchat story. Go to a concert for the artist, not just to say you were there.

At the end of life, you won’t look back at which picture got the most Instagram likes. You will look back on what made you happiest when you were in the moment.