Social Media Lies
- Lauren Shaw, PhD
- Aug 8, 2016
- 3 min read
A few months ago I posted one of my favorite pictures of my children. All three are piled up on the couch. They are all looking at the camera, smiling, rosy cheeked and snuggled close. It’s a great picture.
It is also totally misleading.
The truth is that the day that picture was taken, all three kids had fevers, hence the rosy cheeks. The moment the picture was taken may very well have been the only moment of the day that at least one child wasn’t whining or crying. You can see the couch, but not the disaster zone that was my house that day, as every ounce of attention was focused on three sick kiddos. You don’t see the dirty dishes, the 50th episode of Daniel Tiger on the TV, tissues on the floor, the discarded toys and books. You see part of the reality of the day, which was three cute kids. You don’t see most of the reality of the day, which was three sick, grumpy kids and one overtired and overwhelmed mama.
Social media lies.
Sometimes I think the lies are intentional. Sometimes we so badly want to present a certain picture of ourselves, our home, our eating and exercise habits, that we intentionally hide behind the pretty pictures. Some people (I’m talking to you Taylor Swift) are working to create a brand, an image that they carefully curate and control. But more often, I don't think it’s intentional at all.
More often, we capture really good moments and we want to share them. We take a picture of the amazing meal we made because it was special and we want to hold on to that special moment. We photograph smiling kids, because do we really want to broadcast the 7,000 requests for snacks, the mundane paperwork, the clean-but-unfolded laundry? We capture good moments that we want to share with others.
There is a lot of potential joy and goodness in social media. There are opportunities to stay connected to friends and family who are far away. There are funny videos, cute kids, loving sentiments, thought-provoking blogs. One of our deepest desires is to have people witness our lives and communicate that our days matter. Social media gives us that opportunity. There is lots of good stuff.
But there is also the seed for some really ugly stuff. For jealousy and resentment. For discontentment and envy. For comparison in all its insidious shapes and forms. For the overuse of hashtags.
And sometimes, our consumption of social media can lead us to believe things that are untrue of ourselves and the world. Sometimes we compare someone else’s happy family picture to our own intimate knowledge of marital conflict, sibling discord, and financial struggle. We look at someone’s perfectly decorated living room and look at mess or disrepair in our own home. We see a string of snapshots that leads us to believe that everyone else has it all together, loves their job, has kids that get along, and is always doing fun things and going on amazing vacations.
We see one moment and we miss the behind the scenes reality. We forget that there is always, always, always more to the story. The happy, pretty moment is a part of the story, and part of the story worth treasuring and remembering. But it is not the whole story.
You are more than your online presence. And so is everybody else.
These thoughts are not very original, but I think we all need frequent reminders.
There is so much that could be said about social media and its impact on relational and mental health. But for now, I will leave it with this thought. I have learned that when I start feeling discontent and anxious, one of the first steps I need to take is to unplug from social media for a little bit. Sometimes it’s for a day, and sometimes it’s weeks or months. But a little break can help refresh our perspective and remind us that life is more than pithy quotes and pretty pictures.
If you are feeling discontent, irritable, or anxious, if you find yourselves struggling with comparison and self-criticism, I encourage you to take a social media break. At the very least, remember that one picture is not the whole story, and a string of pictures is not a whole person. We are more than what we present online.
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