Stop Posting Your Beach Pics and Putting Others at Risk

Our world today looks vastly different than it did six months ago. On what turned out to be the last day of my junior year, I thought nothing of squeezing into a car with five other people and going to Starbucks. Today, I sanitize my hands constantly and avoid even grocery stores.  But when I open up my social media apps- Instagram, Snapchat - it feels like I’ve stepped into a wormhole and gone back to life before the pandemic. Every other post is a group of friends, faces pressed together with arms around each other, smiling wide. It’s almost comforting to see that one scrap of normalcy.

But not quite. Not quite because, well, these aren’t normal times. A picture of you and your friends posing together is no longer a fun way to document your time together, it is a political statement. Because regardless of however benign your intentions were, that beach pic has more significant ramifications than it did a year ago. It normalizes irresponsible, selfish behavior and puts it under a rose tinted filter, which may have an effect on your followers.

As of late spring, 82% of Americans were sheltering in place and 92% were social distancing. These percentages have been on the decline as people lose patience with the pandemic, even though the number of reported cases has nearly doubled. Social media may be one of the reasons. You’re scrolling through your feed, and you see someone posting a picture with a friend or two, maybe a whole group. And it looks familiar. You remember what it was like to go out to dinner with friends, to go on vacation, to just spend time together. And if it was fine for these people, why not you? 

The result of this is, of course, more posts of friends with faces pressed close together, often without masks, with captions like “Corona can’t take my summer too!” “Six feet who?”, or other half-hearted justifications for their behavior. 

As we continue to share photos that don’t show social distanced behavior, it is normalizing reckless behavior and pressuring others to partake. Even for those who continue to social distance, seeing these posts every day can be taxing. It’s no secret that this pandemic is negatively impacting mental health nation (and world) wide, but being taunted daily by images of people seemingly living outside the pandemic’s grasp further exacerbates this issue.

With such serious consequences, it baffles me that people continue to openly advertise that they choose not to social distance. For the price of negatively impacting mental health, pressuring others not to take the pandemic seriously, and altering the way others perceive your values, you gain very little. The greatest reward is validation through likes and comments, many from people who are already in the photo you’ve posted, which does not justify the costs of your post.

I would love to force everyone to take social distancing seriously. Really, I would. I’d love to give everyone a government-mandated hamster ball to roll around in, but I’ve been told that that’s not realistic. I don’t have that power and ultimately, people will do what they want. But I would beg you to consider the message that you’re sending out to the world next time you post to social media. And if you are social distancing - yay! Don’t tell the others, but you’re my favorite.

Consider the posts (and people) that you support on social media. Maybe next time you see a non-social distancing post, don’t like or comment on it and instead just scroll by.

 If we’re going to end this pandemic, we need to stop normalizing neglect for social distancing guidelines online and start supporting each other when we’re in person - hopefully from a distance.

By Anna Little