Instagram is far from reality.
Instagram users post the absolute apex of their lives or, at the very least, what they want other people to think their lives are.
They add filters, they remove pimples with software, they put a tremendous amount of makeup on, etc. They basically modify reality to a utopic version of it.
There are also the people who go to certain places just to have something to post on their IG. I personally know of a lot of people who go to the beach, for instance, just to take a quick photo. They literally stay there for 30 mins, they take a picture and then they leave. The only purpose of that activity is to make other people believe they are living an exciting life.
Your perception might also differ from what reality is. If someone takes a picture of a jacuzzi with a glass of wine in the frame, your brain is going to think that they are having an extraordinary night. It might not be the case, they might be having the worst night ever because one of the invited couldn’t stop talking.
From your perspective, nothing terrible happens to these people and they appear to be living the best life possible.
The epidemy of comparing yourself to others.
We start comparing ourselves at a very young age. We start as early as elementary school. We start to get graded on tests. I am positive about the fact that you’ve done the following before. You get your result after an exam. Wow! 80%. Your first move after receiving your grade is to go compare yourself with your friends. Oh! It appears as though my friend Jack got a 75% on the test. Therefor, I am performing at a better rate than him. Then, you feel good about yourself.
That might have worked in school when everybody was doing pretty much the same thing and when everything was pretty much all sunshine and lollipops.
However, at a certain point, it doesn’t make sense to be comparing yourself to someone else because of the difference in lifestyles. You don’t know about the context of one’s life. Your reality is different from theirs so why are you comparing yourself? It is an unhealthy habit.
Like I said earlier, Instagram is far from a good representation of reality. Yet, people compare their day to day lives to what appears to be the lives of the people they are following on Instagram. Everyone seems to be traveling, enjoying their work, driving fancy cars, etc. Meanwhile, you appear to be doing nothing.
You compare your boring life to theirs or, at least, what appears to be their lives. How come I am living a boring life and they are playing around with cool toys? Omg, they all look so beautiful and I am not, I must suck. Then, you start feeling bad about yourself and you start entering a feedback loop from hell. (shout-out Mark Manson!) You start feeling anxious about the fact that everybody else is performing at a better rate than you and you start getting anxiety from your anxiety.
Endless swiping
Here is an interesting information! According to SimilarWeb, users spent an average of 53 minutes per day on Instagram in 2018.
Let’s do quick mathematics! There is 24 hours in a day. Let us say that you sleep 8 hours a day. That leaves us with 16 hours of awake time. You must go to a job for 8 hours a day. That leaves us with 8 hours. Let’s not forget about the time you spend going to work and coming back which could be like 1 hour total. That leaves us with 7 hours. Let’s round up the 53 mins to 1 hour. That gives us a ratio of 1/7. That is roughly 14 % of your day that is spent on this one platform alone.
Note that there are plenty of variables that I am keeping out of the equation, but I am sure you get the idea! People spend way too much time on Instagram. Let’s not forget about YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat, etc.
We could also calculate the amount of time spent on Instagram per year.
53 mins/day x 365 days/year = 19345mins/year
19345mins/year x 1hour/60mins x 1day/24hours = 13,43 days/year.
13,43 days/year!?
Jesus Christ!
That means that the average person spends 13,43 complete 24-hour days in a year on Instagram alone?!
On Instagram, there is pretty much endless content. You can swipe down indefinitely. This is not a healthy practice to do. You could accomplish so much more. You are there looking at the fake representation of a probably fake reality. You could do something productive. I am not saying that we should absolutely stop using Instagram. What I am trying to put forward here is the fact that we spend way too much time on this platform. It is fine to seek entertainment, but one platform alone should absorb that much time of your day.
I write about other stuff too!
