Should Social Media Teach Me How to Love Myself?

A larger proportion of lifestyle bloggers have shared a guide to self-love with their fans. You shouldn’t get this wrong, self-love is crucial. The problem is how the same platforms that promote unattainable standards of living are now telling you to avoid chasing after perfection.

You may be wondering if you have lost touch within yourself to an extent that you’ve opened doors for other people to teach you how to practice self-love. Well, such mixed feelings and signals are difficult to follow. However, you may need to ask yourself, “Why does ‘self-love stuff’ have such a large audience?”

A link between depression and social media? Seriously?

According to a report from the United Kingdom, (one that argued that Instagram is the worst social platform app for your mental health), depression and anxiety rates have gone up by 70 percent within the last two and half decades. Surprisingly, social media is the suspected culprit.

The report doesn’t define the exact impact of social media that has led to the increased rate of depression and anxiety. However, a study conducted in Ottawa reveals that people who use Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter for more than two hours daily are likely to show signs of anxiety or depression or report poor mental health.

Note that the curated images and videos offered by various social media apps create compare and despair phenomenon. The research revealed that watching the videos and viewing the images that are heavily photoshopped can result in feelings of anxiety.

So, the question is, is rejecting the social media which is a definitive aspect of the millennial culture the answer to cure the in surge in mental illness associated with social media? Perhaps not. However, the link between social media use and mental illnesses is significant.

One thing that every college student and any other social media user should know is that social media has its pitfalls. Therefore, it’s up to you to stop yourself from confusing internet reality and your daily life.

You have to protect yourself

We are living in an age of varied alternative facts and we have to be critical of the social media that is presented to us. It goes without a saying that we are approaching a point where we all rely on social platforms for more than personal use. People use social media to not only create their reality but also rely on it to report worldwide state of affairs. And for this reason, the line between reality and the curated online world is disappearing gradually.

Lastly, stop looking for happiness from social media

It’s worth mentioning that the online world has eliminated the understanding that both good and bad things can happen to us simultaneously. In most cases, people are too often viewing other people’s highlight reels via curated photo and video feeds and these forms of media make them feel that’s how life should be always. Everyone should understand that we all have tough days and bad angles. That is the human experience and something we should all embrace. Thus, you don’t need social media to remind you that.