You Are What You Post?
Have we become so obsessed with looking good online that we have lost touch with the real world?
We are all guilty of giving into the social media hype, regularly sharing our lives online to update family, friends and fans on what’s happening at any given moment. From wanderlust envy to our latest purchases and those awful photos from Saturday night, we don’t just encourage FOMO, we create it. However, have we become too engrossed in making sure we look perfect or have a large following to notice the effects it may have on our real lives? We take a look into how we use society’s internet addiction and how it may be to our own determent.
Everyone wants to be liked or envied, even if only by our peers. Daily we see new trends that we must follow for fear of being seen as out of the loop and compete to have content more unique than anyone else’s.
We pressurise ourselves to look a certain way, be a certain way and act with utmost confidence. From NekNominations to taking lewd photos in sacred places in Greece, we all fight to be the most talked about in a game of fake popularity and self-satisfaction.
Earlier this year, the Royal Society of Public Health (RSPH) released a report entitled #StatusOfMind in connection with the Young Health Movement. Detailing the correlation between the usage of social media and the rise in mental health issues for 16-24 year olds, the report proved to be a pivotal piece in identifying some major flaws online culture has brought. Brace yourselves, the findings are rather distressing.
With 91% of us using the internet for social networking, we now live in an era where it is normal to have even the most personal of photos circulate the web. RSPH detail however there is a direct link between this mass exposure and the gut-wrenching 70% rise in the rates of anxiety and depression over the past 25 years.
In the report, Chief Executive of the RSPH, Shirley Cramer, CBE relayed that; “The highest incidence of social media use is seen amongst those aged 16 – 24. That these years are a crucial period for emotional and psychosocial development only enforces the need for greater understanding of social media’s impact.”
So how do we truly understand the effects that our media habits have on us in our demeanour and in the future? Looking into this we have found a number of insightful facts that may shed some light.
With a rise in the usage of photo-editing applications such as Facetuneand Photoshop, we now can make ourselves thinner, curvier and even have that nasty acne breakout we had before a night out magically disappear. This remodelling of ourselves has led to body confidence issues and even more pressure to conform to a certain image.
With a colossal nine out of ten teenage girls admitting they are dissatisfied with their body, the issues surrounding body dysmorphia have never been more relevant. Instead of jumping to the blame of society and the press creating body ideals we should follow, we must also face that we in turn are doing it to ourselves.
Another aspect of social media that can have adverse effects on our mental health unsurprisingly lies in the amount of time we spend on it. As we sit up in the early hours casually watching our favourite vloggers tell us what they had for dinner and perusing through the new Facebook album posted by that friend in America whom we haven’t spoken to in years, we forget that we are in fact depriving ourselves of much needed sleep.
As the report follows, a lack of sleep only creates a cycle of stress and unproductivity which in turn can lead to anxiety. Despite even knowing this ourselves however, it is just so hard to pull away from the smartphone that buzzes with a new message right before you drift off into a sea of dreams.
We actively commit ourselves daily to hours of liking, sharing and commenting on social feeds in the false hope of staying ‘woke’ whilst allowing ourselves to become subdued by simple reality.
Issues that our addiction to living a life online brings do not just reside in mental health either, as website careerbuilder.com revealed in their article “70% of employers are snooping candidates’ social media profiles.”
The article detailed how prospective employers search our social media feeds on the regular to see how professional we actually are, with 24% even searching for any reason at all not to hire us.
Issues that lead to our chances of being employed to dwindle include inappropriate content, evidence of alcohol or drug abuse and even posting too much! Bottom line is, if you wouldn’t down that Jagerbomb in front of your future boss, don’t post a video of it onto Instagram.
Now despite all of this, we are not stupid. We know how to use social media for good, be it through advertising or news collection, we even use it to forge communities that previous generations could never have dreamed of. We know that the world is watching us and yet, we find it exhilarating.
The correlations between the over obsession to have a striking online persona and having issues in real life are undeniable, yet in ways having an alter-ego at the touch of a button can be a release for some people also.
What’s most important is that we remain aware of what we post, how it may be perceived and most importantly that we, in ourselves are happy in who we are. We are all partial to the odd embarrassing tag of a photo or maybe one of those utterly shameful ‘I woke up like this’ snapchats but knowing the line of positive content versus destructive is vital.
Perhaps allocating time to take a social cleanse is the latest trend for us to follow. Just as we would in January following our Christmas gorge, having space from social media could act as the reset button the experts are crying out for.
Arguably we are a rebellious generation prone to ignoring the advice of our elders, especially when it comes to something that has passionately become an intrinsic part of our lives, but let’s not dismiss this new ideology just yet.
Our online life is immortal but sadly we are not, we need to ensure that the value of reality is appreciated, harnessed and eventually becomes our newest obsession.