Think about the last time you were extremely happy about something that happened to you.
Did you get a good grade on a particularly difficult exam? Did you get accepted into grad school? Did you get engaged, asked to a big event for your school, find out you got the job you wanted after graduation?
You were excited, right? And where did you turn to tell mass amounts of people - your friends, family, and strangers alike - all at once, in just seconds, so you could receive gratification through a "You're awesome, congratulations!" comment?
If your answer to this is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, or any other form of social media, consider yourself one amongst millions who choose to broadcast their accomplishments on the internet. Don't worry, it's not a bad thing -- that's what social media is for, after all! It's a place to be social, a place to let people know what you're up to, especially if what you're up to is particularly awesome and worthy of a 140 character tweet or 2-sentence long paragraph.
Now, I want you to think about the last time you were really, really sad or disappointed. Maybe someone lied to you, maybe you lost your favorite ring, or you failed that exam that had you so worried and now you might have to take the whole entire class over again. Where did you go with your big news? Did you immediately blast it on the internet and let everyone know that no, things were not going according to plan and that you were miserable?
Probably not. Do you really want everyone knowing that you, too, are human? That you, too, have problems and struggle with every day issues such as being short on rent or finding out your boss has been saying nasty things about you behind your back?
No...for some reason, you probably don't.
Even though these things are not uncommon, even though they're probably super relatable, we normally are not eager to broadcast anything but the best events and happenings in our lives, on the internet.
When someone scans your Facebook profile, what do you want them to see? Your latest accomplishments, your pictures of you and your friends at parties and get-togethers, photos of your awesome vacations and weekend road trips, etc, right? You want them to look at your profile and your bright, happy, shining avatar on Instagram and think "Wow. Sally really has her life together. I want to be more like her. I want to do these things. She seems to be so carefree, she knows what she's doing. Why can't I be like Sally?"
The truth is that nobody is exactly like they make themselves out to be on their online profiles. Everyone wants to reveal only their best attributes in an attempt to make onlookers, (friends, followers, what-have-you) a little bit, well, jealous. And not even in a mean, green way...but rather in a way that brings forth a sense of admiration, of wonder.
You post what you post mostly because it looks nice.
Your Instagram pictures might be color-schemed a certain way (I actually am guilty of this!) because you want to give off the idea that you know what you're doing behind the camera and everything just looks cooler with a VSCO filter. Your Twitter page might be full of tweets that you don't fully understand, but retweet anyways because hey, everyone else seems to know what's up with global warming, and even if you don't, retweeting a post that makes it seem like you do is just as good as knowing, right?
Wrong.
We create online personas even when they are not truthful or accurate of what our lives are like. According to yourlifeyourvoice.org, social media has been proven to increase feelings of anxiety and depression...why? Because when you are feeling down or bored with yourself, your hobbies, and your life, scrolling through the "happy, perfect" lives of others on your newsfeed is NOT going to make you feel better.
You're going to see Sally posting photos of herself skiing in the Swiss Alps and you're going to wonder why you aren't skiing in the Swiss Alps. You're going to see Susan from high school is getting married to a billionaire on a yacht and you're going to wonder why no one has proposed to you in the middle of the ocean(because why not, you're frickin' awesome, duh). You're going to see Danny from that one stats class you took, getting his first job that probably pays over $80,000 a year, and you're going to think...why isn't that me?
We all need to remember something, though, when we're flicking our thumbs through our social media websites. Just like we don't want to post all of our downfalls and shortcomings and disappointments...Sally and Susan and Danny don't want to, either. All of them are going to post about the happy things in their lives and keep all of the stuff that doesn't make their lives look 100 percent stress-free, off of Facebook and Twitter and Instagram.
We are all guilty of doing this. I am always posting about things that I am excited about and it is very rare that I will ever post something that makes anyone feel sorry for me. Why? I don't want the pity. I don't want anyone to look at my profile and think "Oh, how sad for her...glad it's not me!" While I don't exactly want people being envious of me, I also don't want them thinking that I have it bad, that my life could be so much better than it is.
Why do we care about what the rest of the world thinks? We're all just tap, tap, tapping away at our little screens, not watching where we're going in the hallway, bumping into people while we're reading the latest slander on the presidential election.
We are all no different from one another in the aspect that we all have ups and downs. We must remember, while we are scrolling through pictures and faces and status updates, that social media is not always truthful; people will choose to show what they want the rest of the world to see, and most likely, it won't be anything that makes you pity them or scream for joy that you aren't in their shoes.
Remember that we choose to show what we want people to see, and just because someone is posting about an accomplishment or something happy in their lives, it doesn't mean that your life is boring or useless or that you are uninteresting.
Only you know what goes on outside the edges of that camera on your phone, outside of that glass screen. Only you know how you feel at night when you go to bed, even if what you posted online makes you seem like the happiest little duckling in the world.
And just like only you know about you, the rest of the world only knows about themselves.
