I was always late to jump on any new social media, so no surprise that it took me until the end of my senior year to make an Instagram to keep in touch with friends while we went our separate ways to college.
As the summer passed, I scrolled through countless photos of friends at graduation parties and on vacations at every beach imaginable. Endless hashtags of nonsense seemed to flood my feed. Half the time I spent on Instagram, I was on the couch or working, and I didn’t seem to have time for what all of these glorious photos were depicting.
When school started, I had more to share because I was in a completely different place. But as my freshman year passed, I scrolled through the same types of pictures and seemed to scroll when I was bored. It all seemed like a big popularity contest, self-promotion at its finest, which seems to be the definition of social media. And as we have seen in the news, what you see is not all it’s cracked up to be.
Remember Essena O’Neil, an Australian model who spoke out and said the life she portrayed on Instagram was fake. She said she “deleted over 2,000 photos here today that served no real purpose other than self-promotion.” She became addicted, much like the rest of us, and it hurt the way she felt about herself.
And that’s the big take away from all of this, things are not what they seem to be. Even though I was never big on Instagram, I still gave into to the idea that people were out doing all these cool things looking flawless while I was on the couch doing nothing. But what Instagram doesn’t tell you is when the photo was even taken and what app someone used to clear their skin.
We are so afraid of what people are going to perceive us to be, that we lose ourselves in the game of social media. Don’t get me wrong, social media can be used as a tool for social change and connecting the world but it is especially cruel to young women. Why did Essena feel that she had to take a picture a hundred times just to make sure her stomach looked flat? Because of expectation that a woman has to be perfect. I applaud Essena for inspiring young women to life a real authentic life without the pressure to perceive a perfect life.
But what made me finally decide to delete my Instagram? I was sick of seeing what people wanted me to see their life as. I was not impressed by the endless selfies just to rack in the likes. What is the logical reason for doing this? There really isn’t one except for the fact that everyone else is doing it, and the if someone is posting something cool about their life, then I need to one up them attitude is exhausting. I deleted it after having it for little over a year, before Essena’s shared her story, but my reasons for doing so stand firmer because of her story.
Looking back I don’t really think twice about it, if someone did something cool, I hope they can tell me in person and we can have a conversation about it. I’m not suggesting to delete your Instagram, but scroll with a grain of salt. Most of what you see isn’t what it truly is.
