In a world where over-sharing is the new normal, how many of us are really living our best lives?
Instagram can be a wonderful tool for sharing your own life experiences whilst exploring the lives of others. Gone are the days of labouring over physical photo albums for the sake of ‘memories’, now, everything is right there, your whole life in pictures is stored neatly and effortlessly in just one app on your phone. The logistics of the app are, essentially, brilliant. Want to share pictures of your travels with your friends and family and be able to look back on them in the future? Post them on Instagram. Want to share pictures of your meals on your new weightloss journey for encouragement purposes? Post them on Instagram. Want to curate a wholly different life to your own in order to seem like you have more friends, are skinnier, more tanned, richer, more travelled, more loved, than you actually are? Use photoshop, utilise the algorithms to your advantage, and then post on Instagram.
I POSTED THIS JUST FOR YOU
Instagram is the perfect place for drawing attention to yourself. But what happens when the attention of others, or one person in particular, is our driving motive for posting something? Have we taken it too far? These posts, the equivalent of Gatsby throwing all those extravagant parties in the hope that Daisy might just come and visit, show that with the simple façade of an Instagram boomerang or filter, we can pretend that we are having fun whilst, in reality, we are nervously curating a feed to prove something to someone, with that ‘something’ often being ‘I am having a better time than you’. In hosting a poll via Instagram stories, users took to our DM’s to state that, in the midst of a breakup, the amount of times they posted significantly increased, with the attention of an ex-partner being ‘really, the only reason I posted’. Not only did users find themselves constantly feeling as if they needed to post pictures of themselves having fun to somewhat boast to their ex, but it made users feel overwhelmed, sometimes even anxious, about knowing who had viewed their stories or liked their posts. It becomes competitive, a way to show that you have survived the break-up and come out on top as well as a way to prove that they still care about you, based on their viewing of your profile, and are clearly wasting away without your presence. One innocent boomerang of cheers-ing wine glasses becomes the crux against which to determine whether someone is still in love with you. Sounds crazy, right? But it gets worse. Then you have the people who look at your story when you least expect it. Someone you used to be in love with or an ex-best friend, who no longer follows you, randomly shows up in your story views? You’re bound to question everything. Do they miss me? Are they thinking about me? Are they saying something bad about me, making fun of me? Why now? What does this mean? Should I take this as a compliment? It’s overwhelming, exhausting, even heartbreaking. That all these tumultuous feelings can be brought on by something as seemingly insignificant as someone viewing your Instagram story is bound to make one wonder, are we placing too much significance on understanding where we stand with others by analysing their Instagram usage? And, perhaps most importantly, is this misplaced significance at the expense of both discussing and understanding our true selves and emotions?
MY LIFE IS SUPER FUN!!
Have you ever had a wine night with the girls and not posted a boomerang of it? Did it even happen if there was no update to your story to prove otherwise? One critical look at my own Instagram page with a friend elicited the following response ‘you never post a picture without a wine glass in your hand.’ I stopped to think, then responded with a very defensive ‘but I only post fun things, that’s normally when I’m drinking! It doesn’t mean I do it often, but when I’m not drinking, I’m working. Who wants to see that?’ Okay, confession time: I am also the girl who preaches that her Instagram is her personal photo album, a real representation of myself and my life, constantly ignoring the fact that I carefully curate what I choose to post to only involve the fun things I get up to. Have I ever posted a picture of me having spent 10 hours in the university library? Nope. Have I posted three separate posts dedicated to one Halloween night out to show off how good my costume was? Of course I have (I spent three hours on my makeup, for Christ’s sake). Instagram fuels our need to show off by providing us a platform which shows everyone’s highlight reel, it becomes competitive, and creates a silent rule book in which it is stated that you can only post sparkly, smiley, happy photos, that mundane shots or negative feelings are not welcome. This silent rule book seems to have been read by everyone with an Instagram account – there is a specific need to make sure your life looks amazing and fun. The last photo I posted of me holding a wine glass was the night I got ghosted by a guy I was talking to, but my followers didn’t need to know that. Instead, I showed them that I a) have friends, b) have important London-based events to attend, and c) have so much control over my life that I can graciously drink white wine on a Monday night with no sign of any regret come Tuesday morning. Did my followers ever find out that I proceeded to spill that wine on my new jumper? No, because my Instagram-self isn’t a clumsy liability. In understanding this need to post only the best moments of one’s life, are we being hypocritical when we state that we use Instagram as a personal photo album, or have people never captured the mundane aspects of their life to saviour, opting only to capture and reminisce on good memories? Is it a lie, or simply an evasion of truth?
WHY DON’T I LOOK LIKE THAT?
Everyone edits their Instagram photos, it’s fact. Whether we simply use the filters provided by Instagram to enhance the natural beauty of a photo, or download photo editing apps to remove a slightly unfortunate fanny rash that appeared the day before a girls trip to Portugal (trust me, I’ve been there), unedited photos posted to Instagram are few and far between. But what happens when this editing excitement becomes a need for perfection? And, further still, what happens to our mental health when that need for perfection manifests itself as a constant comparative game within your mind, questioning why other people’s photos are better than yours, perhaps even why other people are prettier than you? How are we so aware that we have this unspoken rule in which all our own posts should be edited to be as close to perfection as we can achieve, yet we unrealistically compare ourselves to the pictures of others as if they don’t also adhere to the same rules of editing? We understand that we exist in multiple realities; our real selves and our ‘insta’ selves are often different people, yet we see celebrities and influencers as only having one reality – that of their Instagram posts. This sets up the standard for unrealistic and unachievable comparative behaviour; why don’t I look like that? Am I not skinny enough? How are her teeth so perfect? This comparative behaviour has a detrimental effect on the mental health of Instagram users, with Time magazine reporting that Instagram is ‘the worst social media network for mental health and wellbeing … it was also associated with high levels of anxiety, depression, bullying and FOMO, or the “fear of missing out”’. ‘It’s inevitable’, said one of my close friends over coffee when I asked her if she ever compares herself to the people she sees on Instagram. ‘They all seem like they have such perfect lives. Plus, I follow way too many Victoria’s Secret models’. It is clear that we, as individuals, recognise within ourselves the tendency for comparison against other people’s pictures, yet only one person who participated in the poll stated that she was active in unfollowing people who made her see herself in a negative way – ‘I was literally like ‘the way these girls’ photos make me feel is unhealthy and I need to remove this factor from my life’. Since removing them, I feel so much better about myself’. Why is it that only a minority of people are unfollowing the accounts that make them feel bad abut themselves? Are we complicit in allowing others to affect our wellbeing, or simply unaware of the connection between Instagram and our mental health?
THIS IS THE REAL ME!
It’s clear to us all, in some way or form, that we curate our Instagram feeds to show only the highlight reel of our lives – what we deem worthy of being shared, what is ‘instagrammable’. We edit our pictures, too. Some perhaps more than others, but enough to make a picture seem more perfect, or even to make your life seem more perfect. ‘I go crazy on the saturation and make everything super colourful even if life isn’t feeling that colourful’ a friend admits to me once realising that the ‘real’ version of herself that she posts online perhaps isn’t as real as she once thought. It seems as if all Instagram users have succumbed to the need to be ‘likeable’, meaning curating a feed which requires constant edits and overthinking in order to garner likes and, implicitly, the approval of one’s peers. This approval amongst peers has formed a new phenomenon – that of private (‘priv’) accounts – users who open a second, private, account for their closest friends to see the unedited, typically ‘ugly’ or funny photos they take that do not pass the test to make it onto the public, heavily over-thought account. It is as if users are aware of the unspoken rules that demand for no pictures to be posted that are any less than perfect, yet instead of simply changing their feed to reflect a more real version of their life, they create a secret, underground account to ensure their public account, and therefore their public persona, remains likeable. This need to be likeable doesn’t simply exist amongst those of us with two accounts, before Instagram changed their algorithms I would purposefully wait to post a picture until a certain time of the day to ensure the most views, and most likes, possible. We have, at once in our lives, placed so much pressure on the amount of likes our posts receive it is as if the number of likes signifies how successful we are, or how deserving of love and friendship we are. This colossal pressure to edit, curate, and split ourselves into more than one persona – with one of which being evidently more ‘liked’ than the others – is dangerous, all-consuming and draining. But how do we continue to use Instagram in a way that isn’t damaging to our mental health? The truth is, I don’t know. It can’t be resolved through creating secondary accounts, and it seems as if it can’t be resolved by attempting to make your Instagram more ‘real’, either; overthinking one’s appearance is one thing all humans are exceptionally good at, and is a trait unlikely to be un-learnt by every single person who owns an Instagram account any time soon. This is, essentially, a bittersweet love letter to Instagram – I love her and everything she gives me; the connections, the friends, the ability to feel beautiful, yet I’m fully aware of her capability to hurt me; she can mentally destroy me by showing me a girl whose beauty outweighs mine, or show me an ex-lover with his new girlfriend and rip my heart into shreds. Perhaps the only way to fully be immune of Instagram’s effects is to take back the power; unfollow those who make you fat or broke your heart and replace their position on your feed with puppies and cakes and your closest friends. Instead of allowing Instagram to be the tempestuous ocean that knocks you down and consumes you with its vicious waves, make it your very own pool of positivity and love; a safe space of friendship, enlightenment, engagement and fulfilment.
Illustration by Louise Billyard.
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