In the blink of an eye, social media took the world by storm. Young adults and teenagers really grabbed onto it and before you knew it middle aged parents looking to share pictures of their freshly baked cakes and little preteens with tons of questionable picture collages latched onto the bandwagon.

We rely heavily on various platforms to fulfill needs. Pinterest gives us party ideas and delicious recipes, Polyvore gives us outfit inspiration, but what’s hiding behind all of these platforms that no one dares to discuss? I get it and I’m guilty of it, too. We’re all afraid to rip the Band-Aid off and admit that it might be doing more harm than good. I know I recently talked about why we need to spread love when we're on on social media and prevent the negative. Some of these harms are why we all might just need a little detox.

Behind all of the Instagram pictures we see of models, actors, actresses, etc., there is a devil of comparison. “I wish I had her body.” “I’ll never be as pretty as her.” Can we really be getting depressed over a leisure morning scroll? Yeah, we can, and I can attest to that. I can’t tell you how many people I have unfollowed on Instagram or Twitter because I needed to detox myself and stop comparing myself to them. I’m not them and I’ll never be them. Instead, I choose to follow people that I know I won’t compare myself to or people who are notorious for being inspirational.

Being bitter, judgmental and jealous is a side effect of social media exposure. A friend might post a picture on Snapchat of him/her out with another one of your friends. Jealousy stirs inside of you and it leads to more harm than good. You’re only doing it to yourself. You see things that people have and post about and wish that you had their lives. This is similar to comparing, but instead, it leads you to dislike a person or the life you think they have. No one is completely open on social media. If they’re having an absolute poor day, they’re not going to post a picture about it. They’re probably going to mask it with a photo of their most recent vacation or not post at all.

I know for a fact that some of you seek validation on social media. You’re "like" junkies. The more interaction your post has the more important you feel. That’s letting the Internet define you and the Internet is not a real person nor will it matter in a week how many favorites your semi-humorous tweet got or how many likes your food plate got. (Although, keep posting those because I do love a good #foodporn post.)

We are becoming a bunch of isolated robots. The world wide web seems more interesting than the world we live in. We think that we can choose what we want to see and we’re not forced to listen or interact with anyone else. In reality, we’re just wasting time. You have the freedom and power to create a life that you’re excited about outside of the social media bubble, you just have to separate yourself from the leech.