I going to start out by saying, I HATE what social media has done to us as a society and the way it has skewed the way we look at each other and the way we even look at ourselves.

Don’t get me wrong, social media does have its pros, it’s a great tool to businesses and it can be a great way of communication with your friends, but we have fallen victims to the dangers of social media and the impact it has on our generation and the generations after us.

Specifically I want to talk about the way social media has made girls' self-esteems lower.

I think we all know how it feels to be rejected by a guy or the feeling of having to be good enough for a boy’s affection and attention. I mean it’s enough pressure feeling like I have to act, or do my hair and makeup a certain way just so I can get false validation from the opposite sex, but I honestly think there’s a bigger problem going on than just the judgment we feel from men. I think we have become blind to the fact the women judge, if not harder, than men actually do.

We all have lurked that one girl on Instagram that we envy and have picked apart every single detail of every photo all the way back to December 2011, trying to find something wrong with them to make ourselves feel better. I think this is a terrible habit that girls nowadays have become accustomed to and the only thing it does is tear each other down and kill our own self confidence.

I’m tired of girls calling other girls “ugly,” “fat,” “sluts,” “flat chested,” “anorexic,” etc.. Let’s face it, women are emotional creatures and words HURT, a lot. So why do we continue to stab each other in the back and say these things, as if we don’t hear it enough from naïve teenage/college boys?

Instead, we should be lifting each other up.

“If girls always treated each other like we do when we're drunk in the girl's bathroom then the world would be a much happier place.”

I think if girls stopped the slut shaming and the name calling, we wouldn’t feel the need to go to extremities to make ourselves look a certain way, the way society and those excessively photo-shopped Instagram “models” say we should look like.

I say this all from experience, because I have been one of those girls who has completely judged and said hateful things about a girl that I know nothing about just because she hooked up with a guy I dated or liked. Looking back at the things I said disgusts me and I am honestly ashamed.

I really think this issue shouldn’t be taken lightly, especially with the increasing influence of social media and the impact it has on girls all around the world. The worst part is, social media is reaching kids and impacting our future generation. I don’t know about you, but when I have a little girl of my own I don’t want her to grow up saying to herself “Wow I really wish I looked like her. Look at her Instagram, look at how perfect her hair is and how slim her body is.” I want her to look up to people who are beautiful on the inside and women who are extremely ambitious, having nothing to do with their external looks.

We’re better than this and I think there’s still hope to change this stigma for our future kids and the generations after them.