Let's face it...it's 2019 and our lives are taken over by social media, especially those between the ages of 13 and 25. We're constantly checking our phones for notifications. We want to stay up to date with the times and what is going on in everyone's lives.
But we have a problem because we try to live our lives to fit social media expectations.
We've all heard or said "goals" after seeing a cute couple, someone with a fit body, or really anything that we aspire to be. These things are starting to corrupt our expectations of how we should live our lives.
Most of us are glued to our phones. I think it's fair to say that we rarely just completely enjoy the moment we are in because we're always trying to capture a moment in a picture or video. I understand wanting to have those memories to look back on because I have definitely done these things before, but I think that its time we stop worrying so much about putting every aspect of our lives on social media.
For some reason, we've all gotten into this mindset that in order for our lives to be fulfilling, we have to mimic the things that we see on social media. But, what many people fail to realize is that those Instagram famous people are getting paid to post those kinds of pictures and do those kinds of things. They aren't just getting retweets and likes for no reason. What they appear to have isn't real because it's all just a facade put on.
And it's giving everyone else the idea that they have to live up to what these people are doing.
Twitter is by far the number one source of these unrealistic ideas, in my opinion. I know you've all seen the screenshots of people asking for 10,000 retweets (or whatever their number is) to get something done. So they post the screenshot and ask everyone to retweet it so that their boyfriend will take them on a special date (or whatever their crazy request was). It's just crazy that we look to social media for validation.
There are also instances where these expectations have ruined friendships and relationships. A lot of people have started holding people to the expectations of what they've seen on social media. They get mad at their significant other for not buying them that giant teddy bear or get mad at their friend for not buying food. Why? Because they saw someone else get those things and post about it on social media.
We've fallen into this place where we need reassurance from social media. We feel like we have to have likes or retweets to be important, and if we don't get them, we start to feel bad about ourselves.