Back in the pre-digital days, showing someone something funny you found on your own was a bit more challenging. You either had to give a vivid enough description or physically show the person what you saw. But by then, the moment had already lapsed.
These days, all it takes is a screenshot to pass around immediate laughter. Having a wildly unhinged conversation with someone you met on a dating app? Or perhaps a hilarious exchange of ideas with another friend? All it takes is two short steps to screengrab and send.
Here are more examples courtesy of this Instagram page, which appears to thrive on hilarious online encounters captured for posterity.
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Taking a screenshot may seem harmless. After all, it is a built-in feature of our phones, so it shouldn’t cause problems, right? Not exactly, according to a 2024 study by the University of Michigan School of Information.
Postdoctoral research fellow Alexis Shore Ingber stated that people using the screengrab feature for publishing shaming is when things get “emotionally and physically destructive.”
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Ingber pointed out that it could be particularly problematic for messaging platforms where people could easily leak private conversations.
“In order for us to have a functioning digital world, people need to feel safe interacting with basic communication tools,” she said.
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We live in an age where the fear of missing out (or simply FOMO) is a real concern among young people. A 2024 study involving 275 university students found that they engage in digital hoarding to cope with fomo. This includes collecting screenshots and other forms of media.
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However, people have their own reasons for taking screenshots, whether it’s to preserve a memory or keep receipts. As author Clio Chang writes for The New York Times Magazine, screenshots are “little fossils preserved in amber that allow us to slow down and capture pieces of our online lives.”
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“So much of our digital world feels ephemeral by nature, passing by us at warp speed,” Chang writes. “And if memories are what make us human, then our screenshots tell a story about who we are in the digital age.”
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