You might have often felt a wave of exhaustion while scrolling past your Instagram feeds to view the perfect lives of your favourite influencers. Their flawless personalities, stylish fashion choices and glowing physiques.
It makes us wonder how impeccably these people actually live. However, the reality is quite different. Most of what we see on social media is a highly polished version of reality. Whether it is the glamorous social lives of people our age or the impressive posts on LinkedIn that show how ahead each person is.
However, as unbelievable as it might seem, nothing we see online is truly unfiltered or authentic. What we watch online influences how we view our own lives, too. Social media has conditioned us to pretend to be perfect, to such an extent that we portray ourselves as living the perfect life online.
The Ripple Effect of What We Consume Online
Everything we consume online gradually shapes the way we look at ourselves and the world around us. Even when we do not realise it, most of our actions are sometimes conditioned by the kind of content we feed ourselves.
Constant exposure to unrealistic versions of others’ lives affects our perspective of ourselves, and before we realise it, we turn into products of social media norms and trends. Be it our body image or social status, we find ourselves comparing ourselves to the tainted parts of other people’s lives and planning our moves and personalities according to them.
A study titled Impact of Social Media on Self-Esteem and Body Image Among Young Adults, conducted by the National Institutes of Health, observed a positive correlation between the frequency of use of the social network and dissatisfaction with body image and low self-esteem.
This shows that the more time people spend on social media, the more pronounced their dissatisfaction towards their lives becomes. However, this is not limited to how we look. Social media shapes the way we think, too. Social media platforms are backed by comparison-driven algorithms that silently set the standards for the way we want to be seen as well.
Read More: What Is Social Media’s Happiness Trap And How To Not Fall In It
This is where the exhaustion from keeping up with the unrealistic identity standards of social media crops up. In 2022, a study conducted by the McKinsey Health Institute involving more than 42,000 respondents from about 26 countries concluded that Gen Z is more likely to report poor mental health.
As per the study, every three in five respondents spent about two hours daily on average on social media, resulting in an inescapable dependence on it. The study drew out, “Negative effects seem to be greatest for younger generations, with particularly pronounced impacts for Gen Zers who spend more than two hours a day on social media and Gen Zers with poor mental health.”
This dependence does not just affect mood but also the identity of the viewers. When we spend our time observing people on social media, we often start to compare our lives to theirs. Before we even realise it, we are already trying our best to replicate these unrealistic, polished versions of other people’s reality. This constant cycle of comparison often results in anxiety about how people will perceive us, therefore leading to what can be called social media fatigue.
As observed by Heba Ahmed, a counselling psychologist at Rocket Health, “These days, it has become nearly impossible not to be on any form of social media. With this comes the pressure from an invisible audience to keep performing, ultimately leading to performance fatigue. The internal thought process has shifted from ‘Do I like this?’ to ‘Will this get me liked?’”
The constant burnout caused by trying to have maximum likes or comments pushes us down into a rut that starts to feel like pressure. When we focus more on being the most likeable personality online, we portray ourselves in a way that others would like. Such a process starts to turn social media into a constant race of exhibiting the most picture-perfect, post-worthy content instead of what it really is, a space for expressing our hearts.
How This Keeps Getting Exhausting
Trying to portray a perfect and always likeable personality online can feel pressuring and exhausting. This may cause young people to abstain from expressing themselves in front of the world, fearing a reaction that is not in favour.
While it might not seem to be a grave issue initially, this gradually produces youth who fear authenticity and consider people pleasing as their ultimate goal. This restrains youngsters from expressing and embracing themselves and, therefore, facing identity burnout.
Puja Roy, a health psychologist and art therapist, explains, “Identity burnout occurs when young people feel exhausted from managing different versions of themselves online, one for friends, another for family, another for work or school, another for dating and so on.”
This burnout leads to poor self-image and underconfidence. Methods like photo editing pictures to look flawless, portraying a fancy college life, and falsely bragging online just for validation lead to chronic identity complexes.
As per a study by BMC Psychology titled How Photo Editing in Social Media Shapes Self-Perceived Attractiveness and Self-Esteem Via Self-Objectification and Physical Appearance Comparisons, “Photo editing behaviour is negatively related to self-perceived attractiveness and self-esteem mediated via self-objectification and physical appearance comparisons.”
It all comes down to one thing. The more versions of ourselves we try to maintain online, the more we drift apart from who we really are. Even though social media brings along the temptation to look perfect and polished all the time, it is important to realise that most of what we see online is not real.
Someone else’s success does not mean we are lagging. It is essential to find a balance and perhaps develop a healthier relationship with ourselves because, at the end of the day, what is attractive is not being perfect but being authentic.
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: The Indian Express, National Institutes of Health, BMC Psychology
Find the blogger: @shubhangichoudhary_29
This post is tagged under: social media comparison, Gen Z mental health, social media fatigue, online identity burnout, impact of social media on self-esteem, comparison culture, influencer culture effects, body image issues Gen Z, social media pressure, digital identity crisis
Disclaimer: We do not hold any rights or copyright over any of the images used; these have been taken from Google. In case of credits or removal, the owner may kindly email us.
