A kid talking about Snapchat made me consider something interesting: It inverts the traditional assumption that longevity correlates to importance.

Because Snapchat images show briefly & then disappear forever, they demand attention. This is special, this moment won’t come again. That’s quite different from other human experiences: If this matters, write it down, make a copy, back it up, etc. Particularly in photography, it’s generally our most important images that we want to preserve the longest (that we commit to archival prints, etc.). 

“Pay attention; this is going to go away!”

And, of course, it’s all going to go away.