BEREAL WITH ME

Dissecting the 2022 App of the Year.

Once a day, millions of phones chime with a distinct ringtone and alert: “Time to BeReal.” The “anti-social media” social media app is sweeping the nation with its unique model encouraging users to post about the moment, no filters allowed.

Instead, users are given two minutes to take a photo with both the front and back camera, which is shared immediately with followers. While users are able to retake the photo and post after the two minutes are up, BeReal let’s their followers know how many retakes there were, as well as how late the person posted after the allotted time period. Furthermore, users cannot view their friends’ posts until after they have created their own.

These concepts together attempt to make for an app free of the edited, superficial social media that is all over other popular apps such as Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter. This new way of sharing with friends has taken the social media world by storm.

According to Social Media Today, BeReal has grown to over ten million users in the last year, far surpassing the day to day growth rate of both Instagram and Snapchat in 2022. These platforms are taking note of BeReal’s rapid success, adding their own similar features such as Instagram’s “Candid” and TikTok’s “Now”.

But is BeReal as “real” as its creators claim it to be? Or are users specifically curating their posts to be more “fun” than “real?”

Fiona Spelman, an Ohio University sophomore studying music education and a member of the Marching 110, has been using BeReal for over a year now. When asked about how they approach posting to the app on time, they note that they “think it’s half and half… I can’t have my phone on me at band, so sometimes I will post very late.”

In a sense, this takes away from the core idea of the app, which is to be in the moment. Spelman, however, does not think being a little late takes away from the experience.

“If I’m at an all-day band thing and the BeReal goes off at 10 a.m., and I don’t get back to my dorm until 2 a.m., I will still post,” Spelman says.

Spelman is not the only person affected by the mad dash to post on time. Sophie Downing, a Ph.D. student studying interpersonal and organizational communication, has noticed firsthand how BeReal has affected the classroom while teaching classes.

“I wasn’t keeping an eye on it at the moment, I wouldn’t be surprised if students were using it in class,” Downing says. Even if students are choosing to adhere to the two-minute timeframe BeReal sets per day, Downing states “The nice thing about BeReal in comparison to other social media is that it is quick, and that there is not much to do after you post.”

Clearly, students posting in the middle of class, while distracting, is about as real as the app can get. Waiting until after class defeats the purpose of “living in the moment” but is less distracting toward the classroom environment. Furthermore, waiting until later in the evening if the BeReal were to go off earlier in the day has its benefits - many college students tend to engage in more fun or recreational activities at night rather than the day.

If students are specifically waiting to post until something interesting is happening, it may defeat the purpose of the app. Those who actually keep it real, posting the mundane of their lives – studying, laundry, waiting outside the dorms during the sixth time the fire alarm has gone off this week – could feel they are missing out on the “typical college experience.”

The phenomenon of thinking oneself is lesser than because of others’ posts on social media is part of what can make it toxic. Ending this issue is part of BeReal’s goal, but by posting later to post something more interesting, the behavior seems to migrate to every social media app.

Sabrina Day does not see this as an issue for BeReal. Day, sophomore studying art therapy, has never downloaded BeReal and has never felt left out of the trend.

“I feel like I already have enough social media and that I could get [BeReal] but I’m not really missing out on anything,” Day says. “I mean I still am in some of my friends’ BeReals. If I’m around when it goes off, I’ll be in [the photo]. So, I don’t really feel like I’m missing out per say.”

Day also notes that by utilizing Instagram, she can keep up “with friends you don’t see that often anymore, or are out of state, or somewhere else; you can still be kind of a part of their lives and see what they’re up to,” she says.

While apps like Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter provide more of the “edited” social media, they can be a more concise way to view larger parts of people’s lives, rather than the day-to-day.

Maybe BeReal, especially on a college campus, is not as real of a portrayal of campus life as users would like to believe. Or maybe it depends on the user’s willingness to commit to the time frame. Regardless, the small snapshots into one another’s lives remind us that life is full of little moments that matter, regardless of whether or not it’s time to be real. b