Prison Visit Instagram | VICE United States: This exclusion from the world of social media means that prisoners can’t maintain the social-media relationships that most of us take for granted. While families and couples separated by distance can today connect through a variety of communications devices, inmates can't like or regram the photos their girlfriends take before they visit. They can't send a sext or an emoticon heart or a simple “i miss u.”
The last time I talked with Mindy, her boyfriend Cody's wing was on lockdown, which meant they couldn't share their usual permitted 15-minute phone call every other day. “To be able to text, call, share pictures or videos absolutely [usually] fills that void [in long-distance relationships],” she wrote in an email. “What's filling my void now is any mail that I receive while waiting for this lockdown to be over.”