You're sitting on your couch on a hot July afternoon, you get a notification from your device. "Look back to a year ago!" it says, you click on the notification for it to reveal a picture of you and your deceased grandfather that you posted in remembrance to his life, it's christmas and you're 6 years old and you simply remember him picking you up and hugging you with love and care. As your brain processes the image, you go through an array of emotions that ultimately leave you devastated. You are suddenly filled with sadness from such a good memory, but why does one feel sadness from such a good memory? Although many believe that looking at the past serves as a good way to process past tribulations, many struggle to understand why these events occurred in the first place.
Why do we post?
When posting snapshots that are intended to capture a memory, many believe that it's important to keep their social pages updated in order to create an identity. From the words of Steve Olshansky, when posting online you post pieces of information about you, ranging from publicly available to very private, and it is good to be aware of who is asking for it, why they want it, and how it is and will be used and protected. Its inherently important for people to "capture" the memory when overall happiness is felt, but many forget about the variables imbedded in the picture that can later make it sour (an ex boyfriend, a friend that stabbed you in the back), but sometimes this moment can be a huge event that although sad, needs to be remembered (a death in the family, fetus pictures are taken as well apparently).
When someone looks at one of your photos, they are able to see something exactly the way you saw it which is a vital piece of information to keep in mind over this new wave of social media with platforms such as Instagram or Pinterest. Prior, snapshots were a more personal take that were meant to have special meaning for memories that were created by the family so they could later show close friends and relatives "hey, look at how happy we were during this time". In The Qualified Self by Lee Humphreys, "Even when photos became less formal and varied their settings in the twentieth century [...] the primary subject did not change much within snapshot photography".
Nostalgia & Emotion
Researchers believe that Nostalgia has a strong positive effect on mental health, but can also sometimes give us dread rather than comfort. It was actually considered a mental issue when nostalgia caused anxiety, insomnia, and depression in a person. This remembrance can serve as a increase of perception of social support, but it can also be bittersweet if major changes in your life occurred (for the better or for the worst). In our current society, we are faced with the reality that we must document every single event in our lives to be able to recall that they ever happened at all.
But for many, these memories can cause negative effects on the human mind. As Cory Stieg states, during difficult times, attention to our past can strengthen us by reminding us of how we survived challenges, loss, injury, failure, or misfortune in the past. But many can just be reminded of the trials and tribulations they went through and the negatives more than positive, but this is an example of how looking at back at snapshots can greatly affect our current state. While for many we are simply reminded of a time where we did not think of the future while we took the picture, but as time goes forward many changes occur in ones life, to which they look back and recall their emotional state at the time.
What can we do?
The best thing we can do is simply change how we think of these past situations (easier said than done), but one must accept that it's impossible to go back in time and change any of the events that occured. Many have a weird way to cope with major events that occured in their life, which in result ends in people's inability to face their demons, and instead bury it amongst files of pictures in social media to remind themselves that they once cared. This behavior can be seen as re-active rather than pro-active, since in the end many instead of trying to solve their issues with simple thought and understanding we tend to deny these problems exist at all.
In conclusion, Social Media faces people with many reminders of their past that can greatly affect their mood due to its context. How one reacts completely depends on the media and the meaning behind the message, but their mental health can also play a major part in this equation.
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