Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and Facebook. These are among some of the most common apps you will find on a teenager or young adult's phone. These apps provide us with hours of entertainment and mindless fun. However, these apps also keep us connected 24/7 which is not necessarily a good thing.
We are never alone and we never are disconnected. I know that I don’t even turn my phone off at night; instead, I just silence it. We are constantly seeing what others are doing, which then makes us reflect on what we are doing. If we aren’t at that cool party or at that hot new restaurant it makes us feel upset. We are defining ourselves by the amount of likes we get on Instagram and the amount of favorites we get on twitter.
The problem with social media is that it only shows what you want it to show. You're not going to upload a picture of you crying or stressed out in the library. You post a picture when you go out with friends. And most of the time, the picture is better than the actual event was. Instagram shows when you were dancing at that party with your best friend. But it doesn’t show that your best friend was throwing up all night and you were taking care of her. Because you were taking care of her, you missed the big job interview you had the next morning. Yes, your Instagram shows that you and your boyfriend celebrated your one-year anniversary but it doesn’t show when you were just crying because you found out he was talking to another girl and you might break up with him.
Social media doesn’t reflect real life. No one is happy and doing fun things every moment of their life. If they say they are, then they are lying. If we don’t get a certain number of likes on a picture we start over-analyzing everything about it. Do I look fat in it? Is it an ugly picture? Crap, I shouldn’t have posted it. If you like how you like in the picture it shouldn’t matter if you get 50 likes or 150 likes. Why does double-tapping a picture mean so much to us?
Another thing to remember is that most of the pictures we see online are edited. No, her arm is not actually that skinny and trust me her waist is not that thin. Her skin isn’t perfect; she used the smoothing tool. We all do it, and I know I am guilty of it. By changing what we actually look like we are sending the wrong message. We shouldn’t feel the need to change what we look like for others.
Snapchat stories are the perfect example of trying to pretend that your life is perfect. If the party or event is so much fun than why are you on your phone in the first place? So next time, put your phone away and actually enjoy yourself. Don’t worry what others are doing. Let's stop trying to show that our life is so much better than everyone else's. Everyone has good days and everyone has bad days. We only chose to show the good days on social media, but don’t forget that not everyone has 365 good days. That’s not real life and honestly, if it was then life wouldn't be as interesting.
