Retouched Reality
What is the price we pay for our obsession with other people's cropped lives and filtered existences?
In life, comparison is inevitable. Social media amplifies it. People compare their bodies, businesses, relationships, kids, cars, homes, and vacations. More often than not, these comparisons fuel inadequacy and insecurity.
Problems occur when individuals fail to recognize that they constantly measure themselves against other people’s filtered snapshots—images that fail to provide an accurate picture of reality. Even in a culture that applauds “authenticity,” almost everyone consciously or unconsciously edits themselves with a socially-desirable spin. Life is usually more untidy than the retouched reality social channels portray.
What are people’s public pictures leaving out? Relational strife. Financial anxiety. Sexual frustration. Disordered eating. Addiction. Infertility. Miscarriage. Chronic illness. Postpartum depression. Chaos with extended family. Occupational stress. Panic attacks.
Most people carry their pain privately. They shove their messes in the closet, so they don’t end up in the images you see on your screen. Imperfections are blurred out. Forced, for-the-camera smiles create a façade. Behind the shroud are self-doubt and self-loathing. Sorrow. Envy. Fear. Shame. Exhaustion. Desperation. The weight of secrets, betrayal, resentment, and rage isn’t easily captured in a picture. Yet, these are people’s realities, the unsexy dark side of humanity— and they often remain silent and unseen.
As a psychologist, each week, I speak with people about the things they aren’t discussing with anyone else. We talk through the uncomfortable truths cropped out of the pictures they share with the rest of the world. The cutting room floors of most people’s lives look strikingly similar. Still, many individuals feel isolated in their struggles. Plagued by loneliness, their psychic pain intensifies when they look around and wonder, “Am I the only one who feels this way?”
We pay a high price for our preoccupation with everyone else’s highlight reel. When we try to keep up with a skewed picture, we develop unrealistic standards for ourselves and those we love. This setup leads to broken expectations. The “shoulds” wrought from peer comparison often precede shame and result in dissatisfaction. Comparison often fuels the pursuit of “more.” Yet, “enough” remains a mirage. Instead, pursuit of the unattainable leaves people depleted, despondent, and disappointed.
Social media activates everyone’s “stuff.” Jealousy. Competition. Insecurity. A hunger for attention. The desire to be liked. The popular platforms most people live on are likemiddle school playgrounds for adults. The madness of it all can rattle even the most emotionally-stable, secure individual from time to time.
When (not if) social media has you in a haze, take a tactical pause and reflect. You get to decide who and what you let into your mind. Use your agency. The images and ideas that you grant access to your psyche significantly impact your life.
Calculate the expense. What is the cost of your consumption—emotionally, relationally, and monetarily? Is that a price you’re willing to continue to pay?
Take control of your feed. The accounts you follow influence how you feel.
Consider the crop. What is the picture leaving out? Remember, most people you see are living a story you know nothing about.
As humans, we will never stop comparing. We can get better at remembering what we are actually comparing ourselves to.
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