Social Media Is Ruining Your Self-Worth & Sanity.
You don't have to be a celebrity or "influencer" to feel the pressures of social media.
Lately, a ton of stars have been expressing their fatigue and at times, disdain, for the form of communication that has quite literally taken over our daily lives. Honestly, it's nice to know we're not alone when it comes to this topic.
In her April 2017 Vogue interview, Selena Gomez was quoting as saying:
“It’s what I woke up to and went to sleep to. I was an addict, and it felt like I was seeing things I didn’t want to see, like it was putting things in my head that I didn’t want to care about. I always end up feeling like shit when I look at Instagram.”
Um, can we get an amen?!
Let's get real for a second -- how many times do we catch ourselves mindlessly scrolling through our Instagram feed? How often do we feel left out because of something we saw on someone's Snapchat? How much time do we waste Facetuning our (perfectly) imperfect selves and brainstorming witty captions?
It's not healthy. It's not good for us. In fact, sometimes, it feels like we're being borderline abusive. But yet, we feel a need to stay updated and admire everyone else's grass but our own.
In turn, we end up removing ourselves from the present moment and become zombies with our heads down, glued to our phones. Not to mention, we continue to compare our lives to people's edited/filtered/highlighted lives.
Emma Watson opened up to Entertainment Weekly about how social media can make you borderline obsessed with "how something looks instead of how something feels," and that there's a lot of danger in that.
“I notice so much with young people now curating yourself for that moment you’re going to have to take that picture that’s going to be on your social media, which is going to get a certain number of likes, which is going to rank you in a certain way, which is, you know, it’s like...you’re posturing instead of living.”
Ed Sheeran even took a year-long hiatus from social media, because he “needed to get away."
So what do we do now that we're already so far gone as a social media-obsessed society?
Kesha recently said at SXSW that while the one positive about social media is that it gives everyone a platform, she believes that moderation is key.
“I don’t want to live my life virtually. Our natural world is more amazing than anything on a screen. When you lose sight of that, and you spend you life focused on a screen comparing yourself to other people, it can trigger depression.”
I think we all need a reminder to stop "posing," to unplug every once in a while and to not give in to the urge to document every moment on social media.
Self-care is necessary and sometimes, it means stepping away from your socials.
But hey, maybe it's just me.