Big snow in the social media age

After looking at photos of other people’s snow-covered streets on Twitter and Instagram all day, it is both startling and rather comforting to venture outside. Up and down the block, at night under the streetlights, I see my neighbors, nearly all of them strangers, shovelling out their cars and driveways and sidewalks. We smile at one another and laugh, exasperated, and say the usual things you say in the face of such terrible weather. Sometimes we pause to take pictures of all the snow with our phones; some of them will be up on Facebook before long, but we won’t be seeing each other’s, since we aren’t really friends. Thankfully, though, other people we know elsewhere in town are doing the same thing, and we’ll hear about it soon.

- Ian Crouch