It was my boyfriend's birthday and we had spent the entire day together. We had dinner at this really fancy restaurant in downtown Savannah that he loves, and he seemed to really appreciate his birthday presents.

That night, I was talking to my best friend and she asked me why I hadn’t made an Instagram birthday post in adoration of my boyfriend. I thought about it. It seemed to me like making a birthday post was a form of modern day relationship etiquette, and that I was a bad girlfriend for not doing so. I wondered how, after everything that I had done for him, I could still be considered a bad girlfriend because I didn’t declare my love and appreciation for him on Instagram?

This is the world that we live in. Your appearance on social media means more to the masses than your appearance in real life, and maintaining an aesthetically pleasing Instagram theme is more important than maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

I’m not innocent in this situation. Instagram holds a place close to my heart. It’s something about being able to scroll through someone's life without having to read anything, honestly. Every picture is a little flash of a moment in their lives, and for those that have captions worth reading; Instagram can be quite entertaining when you’re lying lazily in bed or in an uncomfortable public setting.

All of the endless filters and photo editing apps to choose from makes it hard not to succumb to social media’s pull on our society, and I know because I have faced the grueling process of uploading a selfie to Instagram: The process of deciding what filter keeps you from looking pale or makes your eyes standout the most, sending that selfie to a friend for approval, and most importantly, deciding on a caption that catches the attention of your followers and inspires them to like your selfie. I am all for selfies. After all, there is only one you.

However, I am not for the level of control that social media platforms, like Instagram, have over our self esteem and our lives. At the end of the day, you’re only left with however many likes you get, a heart-face emoji comment if you're lucky, and a camera roll filled with pictures of your face. Is it truly worth it?

The idea of Instagram is to discover and tell the stories of the world, but instead of stories, I see people deleting pictures because they didn't get the amount of likes they wanted or anticipated. I see people stealing images from the Internet because they match their theme, or refusing to post a picture they love because it would ruin that theme. Not following your theme is reason for people to ridicule and insult you on the Internet. When did this become more important than posting photos that your children would be happy to look back at? Will your child be looking back through your life like a slideshow or will they grow tired of seeing thousands of overly washed out, primarily white photographs of random objects and buildings? When did this become more important than face to face social interaction? Are we using Instagram to document our lives, to express ourselves? Or, are we falling victim to the pressure of maintaining a certain presence on social media.

Instagram is a tool that can be used for good and evil. It can improve your social status. For some, Instagram can generate enough attention to bring fame and fortune, but for most of us its just an App. An App that you probably just downloaded because everyone else was doing it and now its become such a huge part of your life that you can't imagine going a day without it.

But I want to challenge you. The next time that you're in the midst of posting a picture on Instagram, don't overthink about why you're posting it. The fact that you like the picture is the only reason that you need to post it. Post it even If it doesn't match your theme. If you're posting to wish someone a Happy Birthday, then go right ahead. But if you have the opportunity to spend the day with them in celebration, then you shouldn't hesitate to do so. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what you post on Instagram; the people in the pictures should always be more important than the pictures themselves.