We’ve all done it.

It’s the night before a giant test, and you find yourself flipping through an acquaintance’s study abroad pictures on Facebook instead of opening a book. We spend too much time procrastinating on all of our various social media platforms, and then complain about how much time we just wasted.

But why do we take the time to thoroughly “creep” on a potential new love interest or watch cat videos for hours on YouTube?

We return to these sites because they have become an outlet to share our stories, especially through photography.

Within the past year, photo blogging websites such as Pinterest and Tumblr and smart phone applications like Instagram have exploded in popularity.

Mykl Novak, Marquette’s Web Development Manager, prefers the multimedia blogging site Tumblr, which allows users to follow one another and share images, videos and text through “reblogging.”

Novak’s blog, postmarq.tumblr.com, helps him “find Marquette in all things.”

After spending 24 years on campus as a former student and current faculty member, Novak was looking to document his experiences at Marquette. He wanted to write but did not have the time for it, so he became interested in photography as a method of communication. He chose Tumblr because he liked the blog’s format. It allowed him to quickly and efficiently share his creative, quirky and inspirational takes on life around campus.

Tumblr has allowed Novak to engage and help students in a more fun and offbeat way. The social network draws a vibrant, creative and amusing crowd.

“I’ll go from login to laughter in one minute,” Novak said.

Novak said that it is important for a successful blogger to establish a specific voice. His blog is an eclectic, lighthearted hodgepodge of everything blue and gold. The website takes everyday items — such as a Life cereal box, Monopoly cards and test answer sheets — and ties it back to Marquette.

Novak’s blog occasionally has a historical component. He shares pictures from his personal Marquette days and archived images from old Marquette yearbooks. The blog shows a timeline of girls wearing retro clothes and (gasp) smoking in Cobeen, McCormick Hall looking a little more dapper, and even Rev. John Naus, S.J., sporting a Turkey costume on Thanksgiving for all the students who could not go home for break. The blog is nothing short of nostalgic and sweet.

Josh Arter, a senior in the College of Communication, was also interested in Marquette’s history and wanted to do a project to commemorate his graduation. He became inspired by dearphotograph.com. The website was created by two brothers who held up old childhood photographs against their locations in present day. The photos show time’s effect through the nostalgic concept of “then and now.”

The past summer, Arter went to Raynor’s Historic archives to look through old campus pictures. After sifting through thousands of photographs, he narrowed it down to 20 pictures for his project on dearmarquette.tumblr.com.

Arter walked around campus and took pictures of buildings while also holding up an old picture of the same location from several decades ago. He took a picture of the St. Joan of Arc Chapel being moved to Marquette in the 1960s and compared it with the chapel today. He took a snapshot of O’Donnell Hall when it was a female residence hall with marble floors and wood panels, and set it against the backdrop of O’Donnell as men’s hall today.

“What caught my eye was being able to see Marquette build history,” Arter said. “There’s so much that goes behind the legacy of all presidents we’ve had here.”

Arter wants to continue the project by taking more “then and now” pictures of residence halls. He thinks it would be funny to see how fashion, hair and the overall layout of the halls has changed.

The project has become a student and alumni favorite, gaining national recognition from professional photographers after a Marquette alumnus who works at the New York Times tweeted about Dear Marquette. Marquette is now encouraging alumni to submit their own pictures.

Novak said the biggest change he’s noticed at Marquette in the past 24 years (other than the fact that there’s better coffee now) is the way Marquette shares information and tells stories.

“The pace of the information flow is changing,” Novak said. “There’s an ambient and constant connection.”

Tim Cigelske, a Communication Specialist at Marquette, actively tracks social media trends. He has noticed a huge rise in visual content in social media.

“People want new ways to tell their stories with photos that shows their identity and what a place is all about,” Cigelske said.

Pinterest, the digital website created to organize or “pin” different visual content, was created two years ago. However, the website has only become wildly successful within the past few months. According to The Huffington Post, the website hit 10 million monthly viewers faster than any other standalone site in U.S. history.

The same article points out that Pinterest is even gaining more attention than Facebook. The average Pinterest user spends 15.8 minutes “pinning,” versus Facebook’s average visit time of 12.1 minutes.

Pinterest makes it easy to give users exactly what they want. By creating specific “boards,” the site allows users to find specific niches and follow only what they want to, making it easy to avoid clutter. Cigelske said other social networks have yet to create such a specific “pick and choose” process.