Between “Facebook stalking” potential roommates and following Instagram pages related to my future college I’ve found myself faced with a question that I have never before considered regarding the use of photos in social media: is my school, are these people and are these experiences what they seem to be?

The use of filters and fake film effects that make photos more colorful and impressive than their originals creates an unattainable reality, mirroring that of excessively Photoshopped advertisements of already stick-thin super models. The average person now has the ability to fake their life to their social media followers. It’s a whole new take on “catfishing,” in which creating an alternative identity is not just for the purpose of dating.

Can these regular posts of vacations, college visits, parties and food even be considered photos anymore?

I think back to a time when an album was not a “Mobile Uploads” folder but a physical book of family memories for guests to look at in my living room.

Memory is the key word here.

At one point, photos represented a moment in time that one wanted to never forget. They gave one the ability to preserve a life after death. Now, photos represent Snapchat updates of the three classes in a row you had a substitute teacher in.

Is there a point to these random, inconsequential pictures?

No–there is no mystery anymore. Every single “friend” and “follower” is now constantly aware of your personal life. And this “personal life” is actually a glamorized version of your real life.

So, there is a serious problem here. I am a huge supporter of advancements in technology and the social media developments which result. However, I believe that we have been so trampled by this constant growth that we have learned to abuse it and utilize every social media function possible at every share-worthy moment in our lives.

This Thursday, millions of people are going to take their childhood photos, add the “Hudson” or “Valencia” instagram filter and caption it “Throwback Thursday.” In the process, they will be taking the purity of a memorable token and transforming it into the here and now; the modernized artificiality that we consider “like”-worthy.