Wynne T
Social media apps have been very popular in recent years. We spend so much time tapping, swiping, liking and commenting on these apps. We follow the most popular celebrities. A new breed of socialites called “influencers” have cropped up in time as well. Influencers are regular people who have faces, bodies, things or lifestyles others envy. They generate a very heavy following on social media and receive a lot of attention.
I have used the photo sharing social media app Instagram for many years and what started off innocently enough as wanting to share my daily life happenings with friends has evolved to something quite different. I am not quite sure what changed along the way. Perhaps it was the fact the people I follow on Instagram started posting more curated photos. Perhaps I felt insecure about my very grainy photos and wanted to be like the rest of the Instagram world. Perhaps I did not feel like my daily meals were interesting enough for those who followed me on the app.
Whatever the reason, I started caring a lot more about the content I posted. Different thoughts started running through my head. For example, “Does the lighting in this photo look too bad to post?”, “Maybe I should eat at that cute little bistro. The interior looks so good in photos”, “I have never noticed how big my nose looked in photos. Do other people notice too?”, “What would people think about me for never posting anything interesting?”, “Why do other people seem to be doing something more exciting all the time?” And the list goes on……
Without even realising it, I had allowed this seemingly harmless app to dictate not only how I perceive others, but more importantly how I felt about myself. It had been a gradual process, but I felt very small, as if what I did over the weekend was not as interesting as someone else, as if where I chose to eat made me less of a person than someone who had dined at the trendy new restaurant, as if I needed to reach impossible standards of body type because an influencer who works out daily at the gym had achieved a very toned body.
Just late last year, an Instagram model committed suicide. She was working and living on a superyacht whilst traveling the world. Her Instagram profile was filled with all sorts of exciting activities and beautiful exotic locations she had visited over her time spent on the yacht. It was as if her life could not be more perfect. So it most definitely came as a massive shock to everyone when the very sad news broke! I choose not to speculate on what drove her to make such a lifechanging decision.
What I would like to focus on by talking about this very sad story is the very limited information social media apps actually reveal about someone. That very photogenic couple who frequently posts declarations of love? They may be struggling with who takes the trash out today. That exciting adventurer who visits a different country every other week? He may be struggling in his relationship. The girl who seems to be invited to all the parties? She may be battling mental health problems in secret. The family who has the most perfect Christmas jumper portrait? There may be sibling rivalry and heaps of unforgiveness underneath.
That is not to say people are being deceptive and trying to hide the truth from you. It is just that arguments between couples, a wailing baby keeping you up at night, a home burnt down or a failing marriage… These kinds of things have somehow been deemed far too raw for social media.
It is important to remember that everyone has their own battles to fight and mountains to climb. We are all human and prone to mishaps in life. You do not need to feel inferior because of what you see on social media. That is only a very tiny glimpse of the life people choose to show the world.
Be more concerned about who you are in the real world. Take a moment to think about whether any aspect of your life has been affected, even subconsciously, because of what you see on social media. If so, why not take a break? I want to challenge you to spend a little more time forming real relationships with real people around you, rather than the virtual reality of people that hide a big part of who they really are.
Don’t let your authenticity be limited by a social media platform. You have so much more to offer than a picture-perfect Sunday brunch!