Many people have taken to calling our generation the “selfie generation.” America’s youth is obsessed with taking pictures of themselves and posting them on social media. These days, it is not enough to take selfies with a just regular phone or camera. No, people now need a whole new way to take pictures of themselves: selfie sticks and GoPros.

A selfie stick is simply a long metal pole that has a space at the end to hold your smartphone in place. People can hold the pole up in order to take wider selfies. GoPros are virtually the same thing, except at the end of the pole is a small camera in lieu of a phone. While both of these are interesting and innovative devices, people are just using them to fuel their vanity. These devices should be used to document adventures and special occasions.

Using the selfie stick is great for capturing amazing moments such as skydiving, cliff-diving or mountain climbing– those types of experiences are incredible feats that are meant to be shared. I love seeing people’s inspirational ventures through mountains and canyons. However, it is too rare that people use these gadgets to capture wonderful views of nature and not just themselves. There is a line between self-confidence and self-centeredness. We already spend too much time staring at phone screens instead of the real world, and staring at a reflection of ourselves on the end of a stick is no better.

I personally have become irritated with the increased amount of selfies on my social media since the creation of this equipment. Posting the occasional selfie is okay, but the amount of selfies people are taking today is excessive and conceited, and people are using the selfie stick or GoPro as an excuse to further that. Ideally, people should put down the camera and really be where they are instead of spending the entire time searching for the perfect angle to take a picture of what they are looking at. Overall, I believe that we need to revert back to less self-centered times and turn the camera off ourselves and back onto the outside world.