Whenever you’re in a situation and your first instinct is to pull out your phone and start recording, understand something: Recording the situation might help you after the fact, but it doesn’t necessarily help you while it’s happening. If somebody is trying to hurt you, your family, or someone you love, holding up your phone and documenting it isn’t going to stop what’s happening. You need to be capable of acting. You need to be capable of protecting yourself and the people around you. You need to be capable of making decisions under pressure and responding appropriately to what’s actually happening in front of you. Now, recording can absolutely have value afterward. It can provide evidence. It can establish what happened. It can help hold somebody accountable. And sometimes it can even expose somebody publicly. But don’t confuse documenting a problem with solving the problem. A video might help you win the argument later. It might help you prove what happened. But when ...