Growing up in the 21st century, with the rise of technology and instantaneous access to social media, it has become much easier to keep up with everyone else around you. Whether it's your friends, your family members, or even the Kardashians, suddenly staying up to date with current events and the latest trends are much easier than ever before — and sometimes it seems like an obligation.
At times, it almost feels like people are expected keep up with all of the latest information, Most of us feel that compulsory urge to refresh your feed not just because we're bored but because there are "(4) New Tweets", and what if it's important?
Subscribing to people, whether it be on Twitter or YouTube or even Facebook, makes refreshing even less of a hassle — because now you're notified instantly whenever someone posts something. Now you can keep up with friends from high school, friends from college, old relationships, family across the country, all at the click of a button, and they may not even know it.
Now you can check in on people, whether they like it or not. It's a guilty pleasure.
Through virtually any online social platform: Snapchat stories, Twitter feed, Instagram pictures, or even YouTube tutorials, social media has become a sort of window to see how people — any people — are dressing, what makeup they're using, when they're going to the gym, what they're eating, and even who they're hanging out with, and while most of us all know that social media is not always very realistic, it becomes so convenient to base all of our opinions on this very, very, subjective source of information.
Comparing yourself to the people around you is nothing new, and technology didn't invent insecurity. Being self-conscious about what you look like or who you are didn't suddenly come into existence when Facebook was invented — but providing a platform in which people can manifest their insecurities created a very different online atmosphere than I'm sure anyone intended to make.
A lot of us have grown up watching how other people interact in order to get an idea of what was "normal" — what clothes people wore, what makeup they used, where they hung out, what they talked about — and now that using the Internet is commonplace, it's suddenly a lot easier to seek and find this information.
It is easy to go through your feed and see how happy everyone seems, and constantly ask why you weren't invited, or why you don't look like that, or why you can't have that nice of a camera filter.
It is easy to watch and imitate other people on social media, if not for the likes but for the satisfaction that you are finally learning how to be a little more like them.
It is so easy to look through who viewed your story, and figure the timeline of when you posted — so you know that they searched your profile instead of simply scrolling through feed.
It is very easy to simply scroll through someone's public profile and let whatever they've posted eat you up inside.
It is very easy to share someone's pictures with friends and talk about how their makeup doesn't blend, or how they use too many Snapchat filters.
It's too easy to scroll through their life on their page and get stomachaches and forget that social media is not a realistic portrayal of who they are.
Comparing yourself to someone else's online presence is not only incredibly misleading to their character, but it brings out the worst in you.
It is normal to care about what people think, and it's normal to feel insecure — but while you can't control how other people are acting towards each other and towards you, you can control how you respond to that, and how you treat others.
Let 2018 be a year of treating others the way you would want to be treated. You can't control a lot of things in this lifetime, but you have a personal and profound ability to be kind to others.
And being kind goes a lot farther than you think.
