There is a difference between your real life and what you perceive about you. Thousands of college students spent hours dedicated to making the perfect Instagram post, with the perfect caption, and the perfect song. You might even ask your friends to vote on what the best cover photo would be.
You anxiously worry about how your followers will view you. Will your neighbor think you are cool? Will your friend think you are the right amount of funny? Will your family members think you are perfect? Will a person you have not talked to in years think you have the best life?
How many likes will you get? Why did that one person not like it? If one of your friends does not repost it, do they hate you? How many comments will you get? What do you reply to the comments with?
And by the time it is all over, you never want to open Instagram again. You do not want to look at yourself in photos. Isn’t exhausting being perceived?
But curated Instagram photos do not tell the real story. Your feed will not show how much you sacrificed to get into college or how you spent too much money this month of clothes. It will not reveal that you have three exams this week or that you really miss your family dog. It will not display your comfort food or the funny joke you could not stop laughing about.
I am assuming you spent a good amount of your day scrolling through social media. Subconsciously comparing yourself to perfect Instagram influencers. It creates a big insecurity that you also have to be perfect on social media, but does that really exist? No one is ever perfect and no one can ever be perfectly perceived.