I recently read a story about Essena O’Neill, the famed social medial model who recently deleted her Instagram and explained the truth about her obsession with “likes” and “perfect pictures”.   Essena told the world that it was all a facade and she was not the person she was portraying herself to be.  Since coming clean, Essena went back to old photos and either deleted them or edited the captions to reveal the truth about what was really going on.  She has also started a new site, Let’s Be Game Changers, that she hopes will help in making our society better and less focused on superficial behaviors.

 

 

This made me think…what is social media doing to me?  What is it doing to you?  Having a talk with a friend, we both agreed that we pay attention to things that we once ignored, like what our food looked like.  Personally, I feel no pressure to HAVE to post the perfect selfie or show the world what I’m doing every second of the day.  However, instead of just feeling pretty or looking in the mirror and feeling confident and keeping it to myself, I sometimes share what I look like with the world.

 

There’s a level of privacy that has diminished, which is a personal choice, but to some, their lives are changing in a negative way.

 

Popularity used to be something to achieve in school, but now, so many understand the value of social media.  I’ve said it before, social media is changing everything.  Relationships are different, the boundaries of fidelity are pushed and often crossed, having “likes” is the new life goal and we all know what our friends are eating during the day.  On one hand, it’s great to have an instant connection to family and friends, but on the other, obsession can be the new norm, which isn’t healthy for anyone.

 

Has social media changed you?  If so, how?