We’ve all been scrolling through Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter and gotten upset or annoyed at something we read. I’m incredibly guilty of it. My girlfriend points out that I get rather excited at anything with a certain political viewpoint. However, I’m not necessarily talking about how upset we get over political posts on social media.

Rather, I'm talking about the toxicity of the “like” button. It’s an addiction. Every single social media user bases their online existence off of the amount of likes they get, and here is why that’s a serious problem.

A girl goes ahead and posts a picture on Instagram, on the beach during spring break, with a short and sweet caption of her wearing even less clothing than the words she associated with the image. She has over 4K followers and received close to 800 likes on her Instagram post. You feel like trash because you’re lucky to even crack 3 digits on your likes.

It gets to you when you compare your popularity level on social media to others. You need to stop doing that.

Comparing our self-image with others on social media is incredibly toxic to our mental image of ourselves.

Our personal image is already hard enough to change the way it is, and comparing ourselves to someone else getting X number of followers and X number of likes on each post doesn't change anything. This is causing you to feel a negative impact radiating from your close peers that peep you on the internet. But you shouldn’t allow that to happen.

Focusing on a positive self-image is very important and isn’t often talked about.

You need to take into consideration the number of followers you have, and the number of likes per post per follower that you’re obtaining.

For example, if you have 500 followers, but you’re hitting 100 likes per post, you’re reaching a high volume of active followers compared to people who have 5,000 followers, and only get 800 likes. You are popular in a tighter knit circle, and that’s a huge positive compliment to you!

Why do people want strangers to follow them anyways? I can guarantee you that most people who have that many followers don’t actually know most of their followers the way it is.

I, for one, find it odd if I get random people that I’ve never met, or even heard of, that request to follow me on Instagram. I usually decline them or avoid them like the plague... until I have a few drinks one night and go through and savagely decline them and erupt in an evil mastermind laugh about it. (I’m immature sometimes, I know.)

But the really important thing to always remember is that you should focus your self-image reflection on the solidified relationships you have with your own friends that you coexist with in real life.

Social media is all about an “image.” It may not always be the right image.

We all know certain people who have far too many followers for what their personality actually consists of.

Post what you want to post, don’t mind who likes whoever’s post, and be happy with your friendships that you have come to love and appreciate outside of the digital world — because online strangers won’t bring you to get chicken nuggets or pancakes after midnight, nor do I think you’d want them to anyways.