Social media began as a way to connect people around the world and over the last few decades has morphed into something else entirely. Now more than ever individuals are highly attached to their devices and many of us feel as though we cannot live without that virtual world. How we portray ourselves on social media has been likened to creating virtual avatars for our real selves and disconnecting that virtual self from our real selves. However, this does come with some problems.
The obvious problem with creating an online identity is that we may develop a problem with defining our true selves outside of social media platforms. Our virtual lives are specifically curated and filtered. We share our best news and our most flattering pictures. However, because, oftentimes, we are not sharing our true, authentic selves, we can have hundreds or even thousands of “friends” or “followers” and still feel very alone. It is important to unplug and reconnect with ourselves regularly to keep that splitting to a minimum and to remember who we are as people and that we are both good and bad parts all wrapped together, like every other human on the planet.
Another problem with social media is when you are viewing others’ profiles, feeds, and channels. As Theodore Roosevelt and others have said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” What this means is that if we are constantly comparing our lives to others, we will almost always find fault in our own. We get stuck on a hamster wheel of trying to keep up with our friends and family with the latest and greatest things, thinking that those will bring us happiness. However once you get that new job or buy a house or get married with a picture-perfect wedding, you’re still unhappy and you don’t understand why. By learning to identify your true values in life and to appreciate what you have already, and by spending your time and your money on things that will truly make an impact on your life.
While this is true all year long, it is particularly true during the last few months of the year and first month of the year when holiday posts and New Year’s resolutions pop up all over social media. If you find it difficult not to compare, try to delete the app so that you intentionally have to login on a web browser to look at the site. If you can’t delete the app for some reason, try to remember that this is a very intentional portrayal of other people’s lives. So try to remember that the spotless kitchens, the huge piles of gifts, the trips around the world, and all that make you feel like you are not enough, are not the whole story. That spotless kitchen may be because that family has a cleaning lady, the family with the huge piles of gifts may have parents that have been fighting a lot and this is how they are trying to make it up to their kids, and the trips around the world don’t show the airport lines and delays or the arguments and meltdowns that happen behind the scenes of those vibrant pictures they posted.
Remember that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, because sometimes, that grass is fake.
