There are two YOU's…. The social media you and the real you. Which of these do you spend more time thinking/caring about? I hope you say the real you because it is very easy to get lost in the persona of how you want to be viewed by others. We all do it!
We try to project an image that is not necessarily who we are, but who we wish to be. And in the age of social media, it becomes much more difficult to keep projecting that image. Before social media, we were able to individualize ourselves by wearing certain clothes or embellishing stories that made us sound fascinating…pretty basic stuff that didn’t take too much of our time.
But now comes the pressure to keep posting pics of ourselves about what we just did or will do or won’t do or did with a friend or…..(you get the picture) to keep up the image. Maybe we do this for acceptance from others or to fit in or to feel good about ourselves.Either way, the lost time and stress that comes along with all the effort needed to build out our best digital selves, spending more time online opens us up to judgement from others and ourselves.
Studies find there is a threefold risk of depression and anxiety among people who use social media the most, mainly due to the increase in distorted perception of others and the related self-comparison. So remember that just like the effort you put into building your other digital self, everyone else is posting all their best stuff too!
Whatever our reasons, we really need to consider how much time we spend on social media and posting about the person we wish we were rather than just being/living as our own real, individual selves. There is so much more joy in thinking about who you really are and what moves you, becoming that person through and through, and living the most beautiful life imaginable, even better and truer than your best social media posts.