Social media: how can I possibly compete with you? Every day, you post new photos, statuses, tweets, etc. that reflect this seemingly perfect life. All different parts of your perceived personality are displayed for the whole world to see; you are funny on Twitter, adventurous and glamorous on Instagram, fun on Snapchat, and professional on Facebook. I constantly compare myself to you, wishing that I could be as well liked and put together as you are.
The worst part about you is that we are the same person. You are my profiles.
Everyone knows that the purpose of social media is to connect with the various different groups of people in our lives, but we have become so obsessed with our digital personas that they may have become a different person than who we truly are. Now, I’m not saying that social media is terrible and calling for an end to it; rather, I am saying that we need to take a step back and truly reflect on why we post the things we do.
Our different profiles have become our way of controlling the image that we want the world to perceive us as. We even have begun to define our self-worth by how many likes we get on our selfies or how many people have seen our Snapchat stories. It can be harder to actually enjoy a beautiful fall day or a concert because of the obsession to capture the perfect image to share with our followers to show how “great” our life may be. Because everybody is doing this, it’s so easy to become jealous and try to one-up friends.
This idea is something that I have been struggling with recently and am trying to get over. Whenever I see a friend of mine posting pictures from studying abroad or doing something particularly fun with friends, my FOMO hits hardcore. I start thinking about what kind of pictures I can post that my friends would like and comment on. I realized that I put the things on my profiles that I want other people to see and to validate, and I know I'm not alone on this.
There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but the problem arises when this becomes one of the sole purposes of even having a social media account. We want others to see how "perfect, smart, pretty, fun, and talented” we are, but through a false lens. There is no perceivable way that we can be these characteristics all of the time; it’s not even human.
Real human beings have genuine emotions. They are not a static picture posted on Instagram or a single-note tweet. We need to start to recognize that we are not any less of a person for not having thousands of followers, or that we may only have gotten a few likes on a particularly good selfie.
As cliché as this may sound, life is just too short to be caught up in worrying with how others may see us online. Post what makes you happy, not what may make your friends happy.
