I have always thought that Instagramming is
therapeutic for people, it increases their self-esteem, you kind of get to live
the main character! The feature of adding songs to posts and stories, just make
you feel like the song was so apt, and was written just for you. We tend to
only post our best versions! As humans that’s who we psychologically are, we don’t
want others to see our flaws, we just want to constantly keep telling others
that we are living our best life, by updating stories on different places we
visit(like the cheese cake picture I have used, which apparently worked as a
clickbait here, I actually did not eat that cake, but just posting a story of it
will make people think that I had one, and we all know that this exactly how
most of the Ig stories work!), movies we watch, every other fun thing that we
do, and all of a sudden if we dress better one day we look for a friend with an
iPhone, whom we might have never talked to before, just to click a picture. We
just want to get the best picture to post on Instagram. And the quality of
pictures taken in phones these days are too good that we can post them for
modelling!
So basically, we want to capture every nice thing that
happens to us, and store them on our highlights as memories, which is a good
thing, just looking back at your own highlights can make us feel that we have
lived a great life!
The likes and comments that a post gets makes us feel
even better, to put it in right words, makes us feel validated, or socially
accepted. We are circling in between two things; one is being socially accepted
and the other is FOMO. I came into Ig because of this, everyone using it knows
that it has nothing, yet we open it every 10 minutes, like we used to do with
our fridge when we were kids.
Nonetheless Ig also when it comes to depression, or
every other problem we face, makes us feel like all of us are sailing in the
same boat! That “We are not alone” feeling is also there, but is this a good
thing? Sometimes we don’t even know that a problem exists, like for example our
mothers never knew that “Post Partum pressure” was even a thing yet they went
through everything, but now that everyone knows that there is something called
as Post Partum pressure, without even actually experiencing it they are so
mentally prepared that they are going to have it! And is this making life any
easier? For some YES, as they can feel that they are not alone, or they can be
mentally prepared for such a thing, but for some others I feel like this is
inducing fear, a fear of something that may or may not even happen in the
future!
Instagram can keep us updated, basically working like
a news channel, but by constantly reinforcing the same news in various MEMEs, funny
REELS format etc.
While watching a reel which probably lasts for 15
seconds to 3 minutes, or stalking someone else’s profile we are constantly
comparing ourselves with them, imagine you are on Ig for one hour, you have subconsciously
compared yourself with 20-240 people. Even if not directly at least at some
point on some materialistic thing they possess,
For example, I see a girl riding a bike to her
college, and I suddenly feel like I wish I could do that, I see a small boy
skating and suddenly I want to learn skating too, or I see a kid who is
carefree and happy, and I suddenly start imagining why we all grew up so fast? so
every other reel made you want to be that other person indirectly. Isn’t this
lowering our self-esteem in a way? People with fragile ego feel hurt, and post
their “filtered reality”
FILTERED REALITY- how ironic? Who do we want to prove
to?
Before YouTube shorts was introduced 4-5 years back, I
opened YouTube only when I wanted to know about something, I used to browse
craft ideas, recipes, I actually used to search what I wanted, but now, we all
are stuck in the first step- WE DON’T KNOW WHAT WE REALLY WANT!
Instagram is also educating us, I learn new things on Ig
every day, about the variety of animals in Australia, about various tourist
destinations, the different accents of English and what not? It all lies on how
we customize our feed!
I will never recommend you to quit social media, but
always recommend you to customize your feed!
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