By Giselle Lee | Staff Writer
I’m excited and grateful to announce that I possess the most technical solution on how to create the perfect Instagram photo dump, caption and all.
I’m kidding, of course, but as ridiculous as that corporate-sounding statement is, I’ve noticed social media evolving into something beyond its original intent of forging connections, as content creators have taken apps like Instagram by storm, using social media for creative and occasionally commercial purposes.
As someone who never leaves home without her camera, I can get quite the kick out of posting on Instagram.
Here’s the problem: Whilst the act of sharing on social media gives me enough adrenaline to compete with the highs of a roller coaster, as I hit that sacred button on my phone, I can’t help but ask myself a few questions, which have historically included:
Do I have a good ratio of food, friends and selfies? Do I tag people in my posts? What’s the perfect duration for the song I’m using? Do I even pair my post with music?
Whether you like it or not, we’ve all had the same embarrassing train of thought. There’s now pressure to make your social media look like a museum: Perfectly candid, but performative enough to grab an interested person’s attention.
Unfortunately, this leads to the saddening phenomenon of replacing personality with being nonchalant, as well as the unrealistic expectation that we too, must live only through the best pictures we take.
Research published by the National Library of Medicine has presented the complex relationship between people and social media curation as “false self-presentation.” It describes this as presenting yourself as a persona online and how concealing your true self only leads to lowered self-esteem.
When we seek our peer’s approval through curating our feed, this also establishes a false sense of security in our online identities, which only exacerbates the mental consequences of comparing ourselves to others. The dilemma of being cute and casual clashes often with the temptation of remaining cool and mysterious, one I still struggle with at times.
The science behind social media is alarming: according to a survey by the Kelly Global Workforce Index, social media is making us less productive. Examined using the distraction-conflict theory, which explains how distractions and interruptions affect performance, the survey found a significant relationship between the usage of Facebook and GPA.
With that being said, don’t ask me how many nights I’ve spent on my bed procrastinating my school assignments to polish my feed. That’s not the point.
The point is, if you want to post, there are no community guidelines that say your photos have to be perfect. After all, social media was created to show off who we really are: human.
To quote scripture, Genesis 1:27 says “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
Whatever your passions are, whatever makes you laugh, whatever makes you think deeper about life around you, feel free to post away. Just make sure you’re keeping it real to who you are and you might just find an adrenaline rush in living your best life, no matter what your feed looks like.
