the toxicity of social media

With the rising popularity of social media comes a rise in mental health issues in younger generations. I personally don’t think this is a coincidence. 

I recognise that it’s slightly hypocritical for me to call social media “toxic” when I use it on a daily basis, but I think we can avoid the toxic and harmful effects it poses if we view it differently. 

I think it’s extremely important to recognise that what we see on social media platforms is an airbrushed, filtered, alternate reality. People tend to only post the high points of their life, meaning that the viewers don’t see any negative happening in their life, but this doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. This leads to people comparing their lives with a usually unattainable version of someone’s life, then we get unrealistic expectations leading to a great deal of disappointment. 

Similarly, we live in a world where airbrush and photoshop are used on so many pictures of women; making their features appear smaller, larger or even disappear. This causes unrealistic body and appearance goals for young women, and also unrealistic expectations of them due to what we see in media. IT’S NOT REAL. You can’t compare yourself to something that isn’t real. 

We post the things that make our life seem great, it’s just how social media works. We post the pictures of us laughing and smiling, not tired and low. We post the pictures of us on a one-week holiday, not our ordinary back garden. We post the pictures of nice, aesthetic food, not our brown toast we have for breakfast six out of seven days a week. We post our siblings/children dancing and playing, not their wild tantrums and crying. We post our maxi dresses, not our comfy joggers and hoodie combo.

We all do it, I posted a picture of myself on Instagram in September of me smiling at Disney World. This was taken two days before I was put on antidepressants. Now anyone who knows me knows that Orlando is my favourite place and I love all things Disney, so it was normal for me to feel sad about going home. But this time was different, I was distraught at the thought of going home, back to reality, starting university and dealing with all the changes I had escaped for the last two weeks. You can’t see the anxiety and pain I was feeling in that smiley photo though.

It really is so important that we try to remember what we are seeing on social media is altered so not to compare our own lives to it. We know the ins and outs of our own lives, but not the people we follow on social media. 

The message that you really don’t know what is going on in someone’s life ties in with this, and that a smile can mask a lot of pain. So also remember to be kind to everyone, because they may be experiencing things you know nothing about even if you do think their life is “perfect”.