An Unlikely Idol.

As I'm sure everyone with social media now knows, my parents were just out here visiting. And the entire time I was having a battle inside myself regarding smartphones and social media. 

The thought of spending any time at all glued to my phone during the few precious days with my out-of-state family is embarrassing. 

But here was my battle: I was constantly desperate to capture every fun and happy moment. By photo, video, vine, tweet, Facebook post, text...anything. It needed to be documented. 

I wanted to capture every moment in every way imaginable on this silly smartphone because I knew every moment was fleeting. Even now, it seems like their visit was here and gone before I could even exhale. 

They're gone. But my phone isn't. It holds the memories inside of it. I can look back at them and smile. Then I quickly feel sad at the realization that I was busy photo snapping when my parents were right here with me. But I was fully aware of this battle at the time. 

A constant battle between being fully present in the actual moment...and my desperation to save the moment in any way possible to look back on later. 

We've all heard it and said it and probably agreed with it: Social media and smartphones have changed our real life relationships. 

However, I would say that my relationship with my parents this past trip wasn't necessarily affected by my photo snapping. But it made me just a little more attached to my phone. 

It almost felt like a teeny tiny glimpse of slavery. It has become almost an idol. I don't want to be on it, but I feel like I NEED to be. I feel like if I don't capture a picture or video, then it never really happened. 

And how ridiculous. 

Smartphones, social media, and photos can be a huge blessing, but I think living within the tension of capturing the moments versus actually LIVING the moments is a difficult thing for some of us. 

Yep, guilty. 

But I'm not quite sure what to do with that...besides blog about it via my iPhone  and attach a few photos from Instagram and then share it on Facebook and Twitter.