"Look at me! Look at me! Look how cool my life is!"
This.
And the cool life portrayed is always merely surface appearances, always carefully curated, and often completely fake.
Social media is toxic, and studies have consistently found that engaging with social media has a negative impact on mental health. People always post only things they think will look good, so they know that what they're putting out there is fake in the sense that it doesn't reflect the full reality of their life. That creates feelings of hollowness, even if the poster doesn't recognise it. And even though they know their social media image is phoney, they still assume that what they see on others' feeds reflects the reality of their lives. That creates feelings of failure and disappointment, so they focus on chasing more surface glitter, and more Instagram-ready meals and backdrops for their selfies, when what they could be doing is thinking about what they really need out of life in order to feel good about themselves and their place in the world.
People who think you're weird for not having Instagram are simply doing the usual human thing and following the herd. The fact we're here is proof that human society functioned reasonably well for about seven million years before some cunning businessmen realised the potential of the Internet to push some psychological buttons and make money out of it. It seems to me that if you lose friends because you're not constantly engaging/competing with them on Instagram, then they're probably not the sort of people it's worthwhile socialising with in any case.
Of course, having said all that, I'm more than forty years older than you, and so I'm a fossil that knows fuck-all about life for teens these days.
Is it normal not to have Instagram?
← View full post
"Look at me! Look at me! Look how cool my life is!"
This.
And the cool life portrayed is always merely surface appearances, always carefully curated, and often completely fake.
Social media is toxic, and studies have consistently found that engaging with social media has a negative impact on mental health. People always post only things they think will look good, so they know that what they're putting out there is fake in the sense that it doesn't reflect the full reality of their life. That creates feelings of hollowness, even if the poster doesn't recognise it. And even though they know their social media image is phoney, they still assume that what they see on others' feeds reflects the reality of their lives. That creates feelings of failure and disappointment, so they focus on chasing more surface glitter, and more Instagram-ready meals and backdrops for their selfies, when what they could be doing is thinking about what they really need out of life in order to feel good about themselves and their place in the world.
People who think you're weird for not having Instagram are simply doing the usual human thing and following the herd. The fact we're here is proof that human society functioned reasonably well for about seven million years before some cunning businessmen realised the potential of the Internet to push some psychological buttons and make money out of it. It seems to me that if you lose friends because you're not constantly engaging/competing with them on Instagram, then they're probably not the sort of people it's worthwhile socialising with in any case.
Of course, having said all that, I'm more than forty years older than you, and so I'm a fossil that knows fuck-all about life for teens these days.