Turn on your iPhone’s flip camera. Plaster on your cheesiest smile or pout. Grab your fake friend. Snap the picture.

Congratulations you just took a selfie.

Now all you have to do is share it on Instagram. Or Facebook. Or Twitter. Or all of the above.

The infamous selfie. It’s more than a fad. Everyone where I go I see people hunched over trying to take a picture of their own face.

Have we ever stopped to think about how absurd the selfie is?

People take a picture of themselves at a place so that they can post it to social media in order to inform a bunch of random people that they are at that place.

Our President even took a selfie with the Prime Ministers of Denmark and Great Britain at the Nelson Mandela memorial.

High school students are especially wrapped up in the world of Snapchat. I just can’t understand the concept of taking a million pictures of yourself and sending them to your friends.

I really don’t see a point. Is your friend really that attached to you that they have to see your face every five seconds flashed on their screen?

It all goes back to people’s addiction to themselves. In the 16th century painters were painting self portraits, in the 21st century people are taking selfies. The easy accessibility of cameras on cell phones just feeds the addiction.

Selfies have become so socially acceptable that people are not ashamed to whip out their phones at every available moment to take a picture of their own face.

People can’t seem to just enjoy the moment.

They can’t go out with friends or even go on a vacation without taking and posting selfies to document the experience.

It’s like a contest: who can take the most selfies.

And it irritates me.

If I am out with friends I do not want to be taking pictures the whole time. I would rather spend my time enjoying that specific moment, with the specific people I’m hanging out with.

You are not spending time with the 1000+ friends you have on Facebook. You are spending time with real friends. So why do you feel the need to share the moment with those 1000+ friends?

Put down your iPhone and talk to the person sitting in front of you.

It seems simple but high school students can’t seem to grasp the concept. Their infatuation with Snapchat proves it.

I am not saying that you can never use your camera phone again. I’m just saying that you should think before you snap.