Let me take a selfie

People get really pissed off at folks taking pictures of things with their cell phones, now there are appropriate and inappropriate ways to that, such as the case of a now ex-coworker of mine who was doing so by taking pictures of another coworkers butt without her knowledge, however for the most part, private individuals having the ability to document their daily life doesn't harm anything and in fact makes life better for everyone.

I realize the selfies and pictures of food on Instagram are not what you want to see, but suck it the fuck up people, we now live in a world where any major event, be it tragedy or historic steps forward, can usually be documented in dozens of ways as it happens. This is really not a problem, who looks back at significant events and thinks "Man I wish I had fewer pictures of that"?

Case in point, the Pope visited a while back, and for a couple weeks after a picture was shared on my Facebook wall a bunch, it consisted of a dozen or so people in a crowd, most of whom were taking video or pictures with their cell phones, and one older woman, simply leaning on the railing to watch. The point of the image, at least when I always saw it linked, was to chastise those unruly young people and to praise the older woman for simply taking in the moment, and there is something to be said for doing that, but how does it hurt anyone else that others don't? For that matter, it is somewhat unlikely that all those people would be on their phone one hundred percent of the time either, I suspect a few of them at least put their phones down to watch the procession, perhaps even that older woman had just done so!
Let's assume she didn't, and took no pictures, she has the satisfaction of an unfiltered look at an important event, that's pretty cool, and a good memory to keep for the rest of her life, but she can't share it, she has nothing to show her friends or family members, and when she dies that memory dies with her, perhaps even earlier if, like a startlingly high percentage of the population, she develops some form of age related memory loss.

I hate taking pictures, and I hate posing for pictures, but I know for a fact there are events in my life I wish I had shots of, I also know I have a pretty bad memory, and there may be other events I have already forgotten that could have been worth remembering.

It's a public safety issue too, and by that I mean the safety of the public from the authorities, camera phones are probably the only reason various police shootings and brutalities have been prosecuted in even the half-assed way we've done it. Remember the girl from the SC high school that was assaulted by an officer a couple weeks ago? Do you really think the man would have been fired if there wasn't video of the incident? I feel safer  knowing that there is a good chance of independent videos of every action authorities take in public, and you should too.

There are times you should put the camera down, or at least turn off the flash, sure, but those are matters of etiquette, don't use flash photography during a play, don't record a movie in the theater, don't take pictures of sensitive information at your work. If a couple goes out to dinner and spends the entire time taking pictures of their food, well, maybe that is irritating, I certainly don't have any interest in seeing those pictures, but if they are bugging you that much, I might suggest that you aren't paying enough attention to your dinner companion either.

The cons seem to mostly be "it annoys me, no I can't justify why" the pros include the benefit of human knowledge and public safety, I would say the pros outweigh the cons, and at this point the people complaining about it are more annoying anyway.