I’ve been into hiking and the outdoors long before social media and smart phones were a thing. When you done something just because you enjoyed it.  When seeking online validation or likes wasn’t even a concept (there was nowhere to even share your photos) and they werre only taken for the memories.

In the last couple of decades I’ve seen an increase in the numbers of people getting outdoors (a good thing surely!) but also a shift in why people are drawn to the outdoors beyond simply enjoying the outdoors – some understandable (escaping the digital world and stresses of modern living) – but some very questionable (influencers in the search of content just for likes!).

What drew me in to the outdoors was the quiet, the peace, the escapism, the beauty of the landscapes and the sense of adventure and accomplishment. It just felt good to be outdoors. That was enough. It still is. 

PHOTOGRAPHY HAS ALWAYS BEEN A HOBBY FOR ME

I am a creative person, a designer by day, an amateur photographer since art college – and I am drawn to take photos, I always have been, to record the beauty of what I see, to show others what beauty is to be found in nature.

Photography taught me to see the world differently — to seek out beauty and also notice beauty in places and details  others might walk straight past. In my view, that’s the greatest gift photography gives us – it shapes how you look at the world around and makes us look at things differently – instilling a sense of wonder, awe and appreciation along the way. Photographers to me see the world differently than non-photographers. The end product – the photo – is a bonus.

When I first got into photography as a hobby – I took the photos just for me – for the memories of the places I had visited. I’m old enough to remember when hobbies were simply hobbies. We did them because we enjoyed them. It didn’t matter who was watching, how good we were, how many likes we got, how much attention we got or whether what we did could be turned into content. Things were done for the intrinsic value of doing them. 

The age of optimisation and content opportunities

Fast forward to 2026 and we’re deep in the age of optimisation, productivity, and “content opportunities”. For many people, how something looks online has become more important than how it actually feels in real life. Everyone it seems takes photos now and is a photographer. I’m pleased more people have the photographer eye, looking at things differently. However keeping up appearances and the fascade we create often seems to take priority over genuine experience.

I’m not pretending I’m above it all. I share things online and on social media too (obviously!) I do so primarily to try and get people outdoors but I also get that little dopamine hit from a like or a comment. I’m human and that’s just how our brains work online. So I do think all of us who share stuff need to rediscover the value of doing things purely for the enjoyment of doing them. No concern for likes, engagement, utilising the algorithms, or doing things for content or to impact what people think of us. 

ARE YOU DOING THINGS FOR LIKES OR ENJOYMENT?

So I think it’s good to ask ourselves a simple question: if nobody could see what we are doing, if we couldn’t take a photo of it, if we couldn’t share it online, or tell someone about it or make money from it – would we still do it?

If the answer is yes, we’ve probably found something genuinely worthwhile in life, a true passion.

If the answer is no, it might be worth asking why we’re doing it in the first place and try and find that passion elsewhere.

VALUING EXPERIENCE OVER APPEARANCE

Now we’re entering the age of AI, where almost any image can be created and almost any photo can be manipulated. Unfortunately this means devaluing images and people naturally questioning anything out of the ordinary and assuming it’s AI. As a result of not knowing what is real & fake – more and more people are switching off from social media, myself included. That might not be entirely a bad thing.

Perhaps it will push us back towards valuing experiences over appearances once again. Having less concern about how something looks online – and placing more value on the experience and how it actually feels rather looks. Rediscovering the joy of doing things for their own sake. I hope so.