Let’s all just take a moment to acknowledge a disease that is weaving its way into the very fabric of this ever-so-sacred community. At the turn of every corner on campus, one is likely to find students in a zombie-like state, unaware of their own surroundings, running into people, walls, trees and that one stray cobblestone jutting up out of the ground that’s seeking out an unsuspecting and unprotected toe.

Injuries spanning from bruised egos to bruised foreheads have become prevalent on campus and human interaction has been reduced to quick passing glances, on the outside chance that students are able to break free from their trances.

Students everywhere have lost the ability to communicate verbally and, instead, have developed a system of facial expressions in order to relate to others.

Other symptoms of this strange illness include facial ticks, bulging eyes, mouth spasms, duck face and the development of multiple chins. But what is the cause to all of this insanity? No, it’s not a virus or some new strain of the flu. It’s something far worse – Snapchat selfies.

This infection, which has been sweeping the nation since its launch into the tech world in late 2011, has taken hold of countless victims, with the body count growing more and more by the hour.

I am not immune to the Snapchat bug. All too many times I have been tempted to send a quick selfie to 100 of my closest friends with the caption, “So bored right noooowwww!” Oftentimes the temptation is too great to dismiss. I cave.

But no more. It’s time to regain our lives, our sanity and our independence from a society of sorry, self-obsessed, self-promoting, selfie-taking Snapchatters. It’s time to become humans again, real people of flesh and bone. We must no longer be reduced to a five-second flash on someone’s phone screen.

So, I implore you, fellow students, join me in putting down our phones and picking up the pieces of our long-forgotten integrity that now litters the dirty, dusty floors. It’s time to send that dancing Casper back to the realm from whence he came.