how much time is wasted on instagram, or any social media site. And second, the drop in self esteem that is a common result of social media usage. Both of these things are big problems in our society. Social media has been made to be as addictive as possible, causing people to waste hours daily. It also causes us to compare ourselves to others, without even thinking about it, and that can be dangerous.
When I was on instagram, I came across this post about social
media. It really struck me because it’s so true. Not only does she emphasize the point of comparison caused by social media, she also brings up the fact that there’s so much that isn’t even true. A lot of the things posted on instagram are fake, edited, staged, covered with a filter, etc. that when you’re comparing yourself to others you follow, there’s a fairly good chance you’re just comparing yourself to the image they’ve created of themselves, not their true self.
I found this post from Trent Shelton, talking again about
comparison cause by social media. He points out that we should be appreciating the things that we have and who we are, instead of comparing our lives to those of the people we follow. He then leads into the topic of depression and how so many of us are depressed because we don’t focus on the good, happy parts of our lives. So much of our focus these days, is on the negative parts that don’t look like everybody else’s. When searching for posts related to social media and depression on Pinterest, this message popped up. I think it was interesting because people are realizing that social media can lead to and affect things such as depression, self-harm, and suicide. I think this message could be helpful to someone who is struggling, and could cause them to stop and think for a moment about what they are doing and hopefully help them to get help.
I think that this post found on instagram was very
accurate. It’s a spin off of the normal saying that the grass is always greener on the other side, meaning the other side of the fence. This phrase means that the things that others have, or the situations they’re in, will always appear better than your own, even when they really aren’t. This is something that really does apply to social media because the things people post, are typically their best selves. To the outside world, or to their followers, they appear to have the perfect life. This causes us to be harsher on ourselves because our lives aren’t perfect, but truely, nobody’s life is.