We all know how important social media has become in our daily lives, how much time we spend on it on a daily basis, whether it is to chat with our friends or post pictures of what we are doing. And while social media can help us feel less alone, less marginalized and enable us to connect more easily with one another, it also has its downsides and dark parts, especially on our mental health and body image (Monroe, 2021).
How many of you, especially during the pandemic, felt like you weren’t doing enough because of videos, stories of your friends showing they quarantine routine of exercising, baking, picking up new hobbies? Yep, I felt the same way. I felt like I was just wasting my days whenever I hadn’t learned a new thing in a day or whenever I hadn’t made an awesome loaf of bread. The days went by and slowly I could feel my mental health being affected. But instead of putting my phone away and spending less time on social media, I would feel the need to spend even more time on it. Why? At that time, I was living alone, and social media was the only way to make me feel still connected to the outside world and less alone. I was not the only one feeling this way, in fact many people during the pandemic turned to social media to stay connected to their friends and family, even if this increased social anxiety and challenges with perfectionism and comparison for some (www.medicalnewstoday.com, 2021).
With time, not only did this affect my daily mood but it also started affecting the way I perceived my body. I would see so many posts of women who have “perfect bodies” according to what society tells us, telling me what I needed to do and eat to look like them. Giving me tips on at home workouts and recipes for low-fat, 0 sugar, no-carbs desserts that “do taste as a good as the real thing and you don’t have to feel bad about eating it”. Did you know that 58% of college-aged girls have a goal in terms of how they want their bodies to look like and what their perfect weight is? (Gabby Campos, 2018) And all of these criterias are based on what they see on social media by represented women, who only make up 5% of the population by the way and who most of the time have a special lightning, pose and makeup that make them look the way they do on pictures (Gabby Campos, 2018).
I think it’s time that we realize, what we see on social media isn’t real. It isn’t the reality of most people. Whether it’s a picture or video of their baking or their workout, we need to understand that it is just a portion of their day and that we have no idea how they were actually feeling in the moment. They could have been spending the best time of their life, but they could also have been having a shitty day and just needed to upload something on social media because it is now part of their daily lives. We also need to remind ourselves that the bodies we see aren’t real bodies. They’re touched up, they’re posed and full of a good lightning and makeup.
Let’s be kind to ourselves and put our phones down from time to time.
References:
Gabby Campos (2018). Instagram and its effect on body image. [online] Amherst Wire. Available at: https://amherstwire.com/26484/lifestyle/instagram-and-its-affect-on-body-image/.
Monroe, J. (2021). The effect of social media on teenagers. [online] Newport Academy. Available at: https://www.newportacademy.com/resources/well-being/effect-of-social-media-on-teenagers/.
www.medicalnewstoday.com. (2021). Pandemic mental health: The role of social media. [online] Available at: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/how-has-social-media-affected-mental-health-during-the-pandemic#Social-media.
Hi Coline,
Nice post! I think everyone recognizes this and what you mention in your last paragraph is of extreme importance. “I think it’s time that we realize, what we see on social media isn’t real”. This is something that younger generations need to be taught, preferably before they create their first instagram account. And also people that already have some experience with instagram, although I do think it’s harder to change the way they perceive what they see on social media, don’t you think?
Hi David,
Thank you for your comment. I completely agree with you, it’s easier said than done. A lot comes from education, we need to make sure we educate younger generations on this topic and make sure they understand that instagram isn’t reality. We see more and more influencers posting pictures with “posed vs my real body” I think this is a great way of starting to raise awareness on the topic. Of course, we can always go further and maybe instagram should regulate better the pictures posted by adding a tag to mention the picture was either photoshopped or posed or more.
Nicely written, Coline! I think especially the younger generation that grew up with social media are even more effected by the downside of social media. Sometimes it might be hard to differentiate between reality and the “reality” that is presented online. We should all keep in mind that people tend to share their good sides, but it doesn’t mean that their lives are in any way perfect! 🙂
Exactly Ninghongcai! Thank you for your comment
Hi Coline, nice post! Even though I have stopped using most forms of social media for quite a while now I can totally remember feeling the same way you did. I think if you want to interact with social media in a healthy way you should always realize that people don’t post pictures if they just had a bad haircut or if they had a rainy day on the beach. Do you think social media companies should play a role in “educating” their users to not believe that everything they see is representative? I have heard of the BeReal app which gives users only a short timeframe in which to make and post the image, I think this is a step in the right direction. Do you see other social media companies follow this functionality in the future?
I think it is very good that you are willing to talk about personal insecurities in this blog. It is very important for others to get a realistic picture of what a ‘normal’ person does on social media instead of the always picture perfect influencers. Especially for younger generations this will most likely become an even bigger problem as they cannot determine what is fake and what is real. We should defiantly talk about this topic more openly! Nice work!