Instagram - one of the most popular forms of today's social media outlets. Although a great place for keeping up with what friends, family, and even celebrities are up to, the app has some major drawbacks and negative effects. A person's Instagram page usually consists of flattering pictures of them on vacations, with friends, or out at concerts or fun events. One flaw I find with Instagram and lots of other social media platforms is that people use them to usually only promote, and even somewhat over exaggerate, the good things in their life. Instagram is a way for people to highlight the good and exciting without advertising the bad.

When someone scrolls through their Instagram feed feelings of jealousy can often arise. When you're looking at so many posts of people's glorified lives it can make you wish you had something that they seem to have. But truthfully there's this false sense that Instagram has. People edit their pictures to have whiter teeth and tanner skin. We've become obsessed with our social media image. We post pictures at "prime liking times" and judge how popular a person is by how many followers they hold. We keep up with people's lives who we don't even personally know at all or all that well. I definitely think that there is a correlation between social media, Instagram especially, and the harsh beauty standards we hold for girls. Girls could scroll through Instagram and wish she had this girl's wardrobe, that girl's hair, and her body. It's another outlet for comparison, subtle competition, and sometimes judgement.

Now I'm not completely bashing Instagram because I have my own account and go on it frequently. I just think more people need to realize how people can make their life appear perfect from the surface of their account. We shouldn't and we can't compare our entire life, flaws and all, to someone else's highlighted moments that they choose to post. No one is as flawless and perfect as the may appear online. And we should never credit ourselves for how many likes we get. Everyone is worth more than their Instagram likes, comments, and followers, and quite frankly they are simply not relevant.

Next time you are scrolling through Instagram and think to yourself how you wish you could be that person or how you wish you could have that person's life, just remember that they are not publicizing their struggles, their flaws, or their failures.