In modern culture, if it’s not on Instagram, did it really happen? The intuitive social network was designed to offer a unique way for users to connect with their friends and share moments of their lives. Over time, that friendly mission was abandoned in masses. The top selling app was seized by high school and college aged users who gradually transformed the channel of community into a competitive arena where they advertise themselves like products to an audience of their peers. The environment within the app that this age group fostered demands a consistency that can only be met by crafting picture perfect moments out of every occasion.
A dominant majority of these young users has grown to desire attention and validation to unhealthy extents. Instagram, while having great potential to bring people together, has become just another battlefield for social points. These pretentious users want their peers to envy them while they flaunt their weekly highlights in the same way that they have grown to be envious of everyone else around them. It’s almost as if everyone has their Instagram life of abundant friends, parties, smiles, selfies, glamour, and luxury being presented as representative of their entire lives. It’s this idea of pictures being better than the real thing that has blown up in incredible proportions, forming its own world detached from our own.
When everyone else's “best self” is being rubbed in your face as you scroll through the new Vogue that is your timeline, it’s no surprise that young people feel not only pressure to meet unrealistic standards, but low self esteem knowing how much effort they have to put in behind the scenes to develop these flawless experiences for the public. What they see is that girl’s perfect selfie, but not the 50 tries it took her to capture it. What they see is this amazing looking shot, but not the precision that went into perfecting the angle. Scrolling through Instagram gives our impressionable youth, sometimes starting at middle school, this idea that everyone else around them has the picture perfect life that they can only either dream of, or spend hours posing for on their own profiles.
While fully exposed to their own dull moments but shielded to those of their peers, these users begin to feel like outcasts. Home on a Friday night scrolling through Instagram they feel like the only ones doing nothing. Scrolling through Instagram seeing everyone’s touched up faces, they begin to feel like they are the only ones with acne. Looking at other people's perfectly angled photos, they begin to beat themselves up.
This environment has devastating effects on self esteem for many people. They begin to expect something unreal of those around them and of themselves. By the time they continue into their 20’s, these damaged people are more concerned with the way they look on social media than on resumes. They spend all of this time grooming their profiles to make their lives look better instead of going out and making them better. They spend less time enjoying themselves with friends and more time planning how to show people on the internet that they’re doing something.
Instagram, which is supposed to be giving people something, has been abused by an envious culture to the point where it’s actually taking something away from most. It seems everything it’s taking is ultimately being replaced with an artificial version that's prepped to broadcast. Instagram is supposed to connect its users, but among young people, it's making them feel more out of touch with eachother than ever.
I understand all of this because I, too, was wrapped up in the theatrics of the Insta-world. Seeing the harm it was doing to me and continues to do to my peers, I have one message; It’s not worth it.
