Not Everything Needs to be on Social Media

Shock horror everything isn't suddenly valid because you have put it on social media. We know this but can stop that niggling feeling in our brains that we need to post, post, post.

Growing up in a generation of people who use social media at any given point it can be hard to find that balance of what is real and what isn’t. People can post things from last week to make it seem they are busy, successful and having fun. 

Because obviously we take everything on social media as real because we think that it should look a certain way or feel a certain way. I don't know anyone who posts the bad days and the realities. Maybe a slight jokey one but never the deeper dark secrets, only when they feel better and it is in the past. 

Social media is used to show off our lives, the best bits. Highlights the best parts of the months and dumps all the photos of us smiling and what we love. 

And that has grown and grown over the time. It has been abused to the point where we even use filters to make things look better. Our faces can change and we can even edit to make them literally perfect. Angles are set up to show the best parts of videos but not the full picture.

Isn't life beautiful enough? When we’re not using filters, we use a filter of posting stuff that only we want to post. Being in our senses, taking it all in. looking around and the rawness of what is in front of us. It is essentially what it is supposed to be. 

But being selective with what we want to post and who we even show it to, everything is crafted into making a post on social media and we all have complete control. You can make yourself have a certain aesthetic that you want to have. Be the person you want them to think you are. It is like real life Sims. choosing what outfits for what occasion and our personality traits. 

You can create an idea of yourself and almost manufacture yourself in a way that you want to be shown. That is not from other people's perspective. As humans and people we don’t like to have no control over how people view ourselves. We want to know what type of sweet i would be or what character would i be in toystory?

We want them to think of us in a certain way. Some people don’t care which is great and how it should be. I have moments where I kind of spiral with it but then in normal everyday life I’m okay with it. I start to think is this me or instagram me?

To be that chilled out about that you can’t control something is pretty impressive.  Social media creates validation and in so many different ways. People have validation from social media because they recognise them as doing something good, they look nice or they’ve got something new. That feeling of people liking, commenting or messaging you about something that you’ve posted, that validation can fulfill someone for five seconds. Even as a creator you validate your success with how many people react or view your work. 

When I was younger that is how I was before seeking the next person to like, comment and message which is pretty crazy because it’s short lived validation. In the end it becomes a long-term need because you’re constantly relying on people on social media to give you this validation. We don’t even know these people, we don’t know how they spend their day or what they do in their spare time.