real life stories // abegg adventures on film

Last summer, on some otherwise unexciting day, I realized that I had posted just a million photos and videos to my insta-stories… and I’m one of those weirdos who is as addicted to instagram as I am adamant to be mindful of my phone use, so I saw this as a big red flag in my life and decided to do something a little different.

So I took instagram off of my phone, got out my “real” camera (Pentax K1000), and vowed that every time I felt that urge to pick up my phone to post an instie, that I would instead take a photo with my Pentax.

It felt weird at first! I quickly realized how many worthless and useless photos that I take, and how much energy I use thinking about what my next useless and worthless post will be… it was enlightening and frightening all at the same time. I’ve had many conversations with friends about how instagram stories are the epitome of “quantity vs. quality,” where our instagram accounts are curated and well-thought out and our insta-stories are just a bunch of things that we don’t want to last forever… but why would we take photos and videos that we wouldn’t want to last for forever? As a curious fan of history and how it’s kept, and as an advocate for creating and keeping memories that last, this goes against so many things for me.

And even more disturbing… is why do we feel the need to have our phone in our hands and in our face–and in the faces of others–all the time? I worry about the landscape of my children’s memories, where this little black object is always between them and their parents, and I wonder if the gift of “being present” will soon be something of the past, as long as we insist on making our phones such a sacred addition to our families and to our daily lives.

I have so many thoughts on this! But! The reality of it is that everyday I’m still just as guilty as anyone else for wanting the escape of my phone… this little device that takes me into the lives of others while keeping me separate from the ones I love, that maintains my arsenal of memories while robbing my ability to remember, and that brings me so much joy and so much guilt.

In the meantime, however, please enjoy my 24 hours of real stories that would have otherwise been lost to the black hole of my insta-stories… a really beautiful day where I left Hachi with Michael, drove to the southernmost part of the Hood Canal, and had a raucous and rewarding overnighter with a group of inspiring women whom I find spending time with absolutely worth keeping in my memories for forever.

{p.s. i’d love to hear all your tricky ways with which you’ve been able to curb your phone use! for me, one thing i do is that i actually take my personal instagram off of my phone until i need to post something! it’s cumbersome, but it works!}