Is Social Media Turning Into a Fake Reality?

Social media has lost its purpose in connecting people from different parts of the world. Perhaps the reality is, individuals all around the world do not even feel comfortable to manifest their real selves. It has become a world-wide platform for most of the people to show off their false lifestyles and belongings.

How ironic it is, that we operate these social platforms to interact with each other and to know their actual selves; instead we get familiar with these characters that are representing a hyper idealistic version of themselves.

Reasons Why Substantially Individuals are Acting Artificially on Social Sites

To start, if we draw our attention to the youth of our generation, we will infer that it has become a new trend of showing off. Generally, factors behind this can be the egoistic nature or direct influence of peers. As follows, the more they show off, the more fake followers they gain. This results in increase in their popularity and that’s where they get into the stupid race of comparing themselves with others.

They think everyone is doing it so they should follow the norm. Furthermore, others show off their fake and luxurious lifestyles to be sociable, so that they can seek the attention they’ve been craving for and fill that void of loneliness in them. This is so because, as stated by psychologists – every human has a basic desire to be seen and appreciated. We come out of our anxious and stressful fighter mode when we feel that we are seen and listened to.

Some people show off to surpass their inner self. They try to avoid their reality and the things that they are going through by showing off on social media because it has become so easy to fake things out and receive likes, comments and admiration from strangers. This admiration makes it easy for them to be in denial of their reality.

Moreover, the way viewers don’t even bother to find out whether the things that are being posted are real or not has made it more convenient for many to make viewers believe in fake stuff, without any special efforts.

Have you ever wondered why most of the people share only those pictures in which they look attractive or extremely good? They get their shoot done and then spend hours choosing which picture to post on their Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat. Why not post the ones without makeup?

Even you must have uploaded a picture of well plated, delicious and perfect food from a five-star restaurant while sipping wine. Why don’t we put story of our regular meal or the meal which is burnt? We don’t do this because we are too busy to make things look perfect.

On social media, everyone appears to be living their best life all the time. That’s where social media skews our perception of reality. Those people living their perfect lives are the ones who are extremely self-conscious about themselves and at the same time, are the ones who are afraid to be judged by others.

As a society, we place too much emphasis on appearance and perfect happy things, which if don’t occur according to the ideal way you thought, you start faking things out. Therefore, social media accounts even more for our ability to behave less genuinely than we do in person. This is turning us into a fake generation.

Another reason for showing off is that the social media platforms and the way we use them are not designed for showing our authentic selves. Even the filters we have on social media direct us to choose our unreal identity and give us a complete different and unrealistic image. You can’t even recognize the person after the filter has been used.

Impacts on Everyone

Social media has the ability to impact an individual’s identity in many different ways. You see pictures of your friends enjoying at the pool party with smiling faces everywhere. They fool you by showing off their perfect social media profiles, convincing you that you’re somehow falling short and you let them do so, by falling into their trap. This creates low self-esteem and low self-confidence.

You will start comparing yourself with others which kills your creativity and uniqueness. Also you start to doubt your self-worth which itself triggers negative thoughts and anxiety in you.

People make use of this platform to mask their current situation. They hide their true emotions but the reality is – the more miserable they are in real life the happier they try to look on social media. Everything becomes two faced and they start living another character that they are influenced by in the first place. Due to this they lose their own identity and feel like outcasts.

Conclusion

At last, reality on social media is merely an illusion. There are several reasons why people fake all these things. But above all, you just need to be grateful for what you have and embrace the life that has been given to you, because everyone doesn’t have perfect lives. Love yourself, be confident enough to show your real life, and real thoughts on your social media profiles because pleasure may come from illusion but happiness only come from reality.

Written by - Yashvi Jatoliya

Edited by - Chhavi Gupta