As an 18-year-old girl, there is no doubt that Snapchat and Instagram are basically my life. I have found myself more and more frequently checking my Snapchat and Instagram. These two apps are a lot of fun to post pictures on, but what do we get out of using them? Here's what I think of the two most frequently used apps on my phone.

Instagram

Instagram forces us to categorize ourselves. We see an online profile of someone living what seems to be a perfect life. They are smiling in all their pictures, out with friends and just overall seem to be content with their lives. We start to question our own lives and ask ourselves why we aren’t as happy as other people that we see on Instagram. We feel sorry for ourselves and end up unhappy with the life we were given.People in today's society don’t realize that this isn’t life. It's a constructed idea of what a perfect life should be like. Instagram gives us the ability to put people into boxes. We identify people as cool if they look like they are living an exciting lifestyle from their pictures and lame if it looks like they aren’t. This forces conformity on us and makes us believe that the only way to look interesting is to be like all the other people that we see, and post pictures that make it seem like we live interesting lives. We destroy our individuality in the hopes that we will gain the approval of our followers.

Snapchat

One of the most popular apps nowadays is Snapchat. This app allows you to take pictures and 10-second videos and put it up for people to see. Through this app we are able to control how we are looked at by other people and also how long they can view it, because there is a time limit on the pictures posted on the app. Often times people will only do things and post them in order to show others that they live a vibrant life. We end up doing exciting things so that we can show other people that we have an exciting life.

This idea that we have about social media doesn’t allow us to live our lives for ourselves. Snapchat lets us filter how we appear to the world. When we use it we post pictures of our lives that make us seem more vibrant, instead of just dull, boring people that go about their everyday lives. We put on a show for our friends, family or whoever follows us, and give it our best attempt to show them that we are happy with our lives too. We learn to value appearance over substance and get lost trying to keep up the façade that we created for ourselves.

Why are we so dependent on social media? Why are we so afraid of being alone? Why do we constantly and consistently need the approval of others? We should stop trying to show other people that we have lives and start living our lives for ourselves.