We live in the age of social media. All around us we see other people living their best lives - we see everything celebrities and other people are doing, even if we have no connection to them. What these people post, myself included, is usually the highlights of their lives. Everyone on social media looks happy, adventurous, fashionable, fit, and the list goes on.

Being an outsider looking in, I usually feel extremely inadequate to these people and end up only feeling worse about myself. This results in me being extremely judgmental towards my own life and body, wishing I could be as exciting and happy as these people seem to be.

So I ask myself: why not delete the apps? It would make sense. But I feel I have become addicted to seeing what others are doing, almost addicted to comparing my life to theirs. I would go out and see how others were dressed and analyze how much nicer people were dressed than I was, thinking I should have never gone out and that if others looked nice I couldn't look nice.

I don't like being superficial and I hate that I feel this way because it's not how I want to be. And unfortunately, social media has become a platform where women can compare themselves to others and put themselves, and the people they follow, down. I know I'm not alone in this but I feel lonely - I feel that no one understands the pressure to be "that person" people gawk over.

Social media hasn't created this shell of a person that everyone aspires to be. We, as impressionable self-conscious young people, have adopted this attitude that other people have what we don't have, therefore we have nothing. These people we see probably have the same thoughts, but we will never see it.

I, along with others, post pictures online to give of the impression that I am confident and happy. But behind the scenes I'm not always happy; I'm not confident; I don't like the skin I'm in. But someone out there looks at my pictures wishing they could be as confident and happy as I am.

We have created the perfect scam. This scam has been diffused throughout the world and affects everyone on social media.

We look up to celebrities that seem to have it all. We wish we could travel like them, dress like them, and have their bodies. We see people online who get famous based on their looks and wonder why we couldn't look like them. But this is just a continuation of the shell.

The majority of these celebrities are obsessed with looking like others, and pay large amounts of money to look like a better version of themselves. They hide these surgeries, calling their faces and bodies real and create this illusion of what people can look like naturally.

Women, and even young girls all over the world, wish they could have these features which results in them having negative thoughts about themselves from a young age. But fear not! If you feel like I do, you aren't alone. The majority of youths feel just like you do too.

I recently had someone tell me something that was so obvious but incredibly true:

Just because someone else is beautiful does not mean you can't be too.

When you go out, trust that you look amazing, and feel amazing. Do not allow the people you see online fool you - these people have the same emotions and have normal lives like you. I am a long way from loving myself, but that's no reason to not love others.