For our young generation we have a few basic ways to share our lives with everyone else. Out of all of them we mainly use Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We share our thoughts, our ideas, and adventurous moments with friends and family daily with these. As time has gone on it has become less about sharing and more about “likes”, “favorites” and “retweets”. Those three simple words are destroying the self esteem of millions.

Girls and guys are now becoming dependent on the amount of attention they receive on social media to determine their self worth. I never thought that I would live in a time where the amount of likes on an Instagram photo determines how pretty a girl is. Why are we letting this happen? Why are we as a generation letting it be okay for people to think that they’re not good enough if they don’t get hundreds or thousands of likes on pictures?

Don’t get me wrong, I completely support selfie culture, sharing proud moments, and voicing your thoughts but why are you deleting these things if they do not receive that attention you want? You are completely missing the point of social media. Social media allows us to stay connected with the world, to see news quicker, contact people faster, allow family who can’t see you all the time to keep up with your life, and create business opportunities. If your selfie doesn’t get 100 likes it’s not the end of the world.

People are actually upset over situations as unimportant as that. Instead of living for themselves they are trying to live for the approval of everyone else. What about the approval of yourself, doesn’t that matter? If you can’t approve of yourself there are no amount of likes, shares or favorites that can fix that.

Before we reached these technical advances, back before Facebook, twitter, and instagram, did you really suffer from not getting this “attention” or did you live a happy, reasonable, healthy life? In reality we all did completely fine on our own. People need to take a step back and look at the big picture here.

Will the 382 people who like your photo be there for you when you need them the most? No.

Will you suffer through life because someone’s picture got more attention than yours? No.

You don’t need social media for people to like you, you don’t need it to be good looking, you don’t need it for approval. Social media is supposed to be fun, not stressful. So relax, because attention from a few friends and family is worth more than all the likes in the world.