On social media and self-esteem

Image: https://makeawebsitehub.com/social-media-sites/

I’m sure you have been there before, just like I have – sat scrolling through social media pages like Facebook or Instagram, feeling thoroughly inadequate.


Being faced with an onslaught of beautifully shot selfies, snaps of happy relationships, weekend breaks and announcements of engagements/pregnancies can leave you feeling a lot of negative feelings and asking yourself a lot of upsetting questions:

Where is my life going?
Am I ‘falling behind’ everyone else?
Why am I not having that kind of fun?
My job is nowhere near that good, am I stuck here?

There’s one thing you have to keep in mind, social media only shows snapshots of peoples’ lives, and of course, these are only the good bits! 
Let’s think about it, are people really going to show you the full picture when they can easily leave all that bad stuff out? You are looking rough, you are feeling low or unwell, you are unhappy in your job…and the first thing you do is post on social media about it!

Yeah, probably not...

That’s just it though, people have the option to carefully curate the posts, to find that perfect angle and lighting for their selfie, paint on those great smiles, think of the right wording to brag about the perfect points of their lives. This doesn’t mean that they actually have perfect lives - just that they choose to show you the good bits! Around the edges of that pretty selfie are the same sort of problems and doubts that you have; similar trials, tribulations and insecurities as you. 

You might be reading this thinking “Well, duh! You don’t need to state the obvious!” but I think it’s an important point to hammer home. It’s all too easy to feel like the social media representations of the ones we follow are the real deal, but they are not.

So next time you are left feeling hollow and unfulfilled because of those ever pinging notifications, remember that we’re all humans and that those chunks of information are more like a ‘best bits compilation’ of someone’s life, not the whole thing! 

P.S. How’s this for hypocrisy? I wondered whether I should do a video on this or write a blog post instead, and one of the reasons I went for the blog post is because I would “have to wait for a day that I look okay in order to do a video”. Ha!