1. Don’t compare their highlight reel to your bloopers.
Very few people are going to post their everyday boring, ugly, or miserable moments on social media; the moments you see captured in pictures online are most likely some of the best moments of that person’s life, or at least they want you to think so. Just because someone posts a picture of herself lounging by the pool in a five-star resort or standing proudly over a scenic view at the top of a mountain doesn’t mean that her life is composed entirely of similar moments. Those people have also spent a day lying on a bed of potato chip crumbs with unwashed hair and PJs, just like you have also had moments worthy of at least 100 likes. Don’t compare your unsharable moments to their sharable ones (or compare yourself at all!).
2. Remember what happens behind the scenes.
A million selfie tricks and tips, filters, and editing tools exist. What you are seeing on social media is a finished product, that, even with the #nofilter #iwokeuplikethis tags, took a lot of work. What you don’t see is the perfect lighting, the hour applying “natural” makeup, the months spent dieting for the perfect beach body, or the fifty-seven selfies in the Recently Deleted folder that didn’t make Instagram. Yes, some girls can take a perfect, candid, no-makeup picture in one try, but I’m sure even those girls have used the skinny arm pose at least once.
3. Know that a picture speaks a thousand words, and not all of them are true.
A picture might say, “I have so many friends!” or “I party every night!” or “My hair is a perfect flowing mane and I don’t even try!” But that group picture of twenty-five beautiful people could have been forced and awkward. That picture of a girl dancing on a table could have been the first time she was out in months. That picture of that girl’s long locks could be post-$100 salon visit. A combination of people only posting their best moments and all of the behind the scenes action makes the average picture a huge performance. This, by no means, means that you should assume that every picture is a lie and that you should think nasty thoughts about the girls in the picture. But if it helps to remember that things aren’t always what they seem, then think about the real story behind the picture.
4. Use others’ posts for inspiration.
If you’re drooling over someone else’s St. Bart’s vacation or brand new Mercedes from the Easter Bunny, then these things might be out of reach for you. But if what you’re envying from your Facebook friends’ posts are fun times with friends, delicious food, and a bangin’ body, then all of these pictures should just inspire you to go out and get these things! You can organize a fun get-together with friends. You can learn to make cute, spring-flower decorated sugar cookies. You can get her toned abs. The pictures you see in your feed shouldn’t make you jealous of all the stuff you aren’t doing, but show you all the possibilities of what you can start doing now.
5. Post your own pictures.
You may just be lounging around the house, but there are still fun things to capture. Post an ~aesthetic~ pic of your bedroom décor, or a healthy breakfast that you make for the fam. If you have to, go out and create moments to capture. There’s no reason to just sit around and stew over everyone else’s pictures when you can be creating moments for your own.
6. Log off.
If all else fails, just log off, log out, shut the computer and live your life. Life is too short to measure in likes, shares, views, and retweets.