This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at HWS chapter.
Madison Holleran, a college freshman at the University of Pennsylvania, took her own life at the beginning of her second semester in 2014. She was beautiful, athletic, smart, and at one point, the bubbliest and happiest girl anyone knew, but what happened? According to her father, she struggled trying to “be perfect, or trying to be perfect and happy.” The college transition was hard for her, especially trying to find the balance between academics, friendships, and sports. For Madison, this did not come as easily as it did in high school and she couldn’t make her life as perfect as it seemed on social media. When she looked at all of her friends’ posts, they genuinely looked happy. Madison envied that. She wanted that kind of perfect and wanted to find it entirely on her own without any help. With this, Madison became trapped. Not only could she not get that perfect life she strived for, but she no longer talked or could see a future. She did not want to bring her problems on anybody, and ended her life on January 17, 2014.
“Everyone presents an edited version of life on social media. People share moments that reflect an ideal life, an ideal self.”
Social media in this generation is threatening our mental health, especially young women in college. Like Madison, we all think we need to be perfect. We need the perfect school, the perfect grades, the perfect job or internship, the perfect friends, the perfect boyfriend or girlfriend, etc. The list goes on and on, and what girls typically do is take on social media to start creating and living a lie. We begin to create a whole new self and life where we only want people to see the good parts; however, there are holes. We want our friends back home to see how many new friends we have, our family to see us happy and smiling so they don’t have to worry about us, and to brag about how great our grades were the previous semester and how amazing the internship is that we landed for the summer. What we do in response to this is post. We post Instagram pictures of a huge group of people (who we barely know half of), add a few Snapchat stories of a party that looks amazing, but isn’t so amazing, while posting earlier that day of how good our grades were last semester. This is exactly what college students, both men and women, need to avoid. Not only are we hurting ourselves by pretending to have that perfect life and happiness, but others. Both college men and women will see posts of perfection and wonder why they aren’t experiencing it as well. It is like a never-ending chain reaction.
This past winter break I realized just how bad social media is for you, and why I am writing this now. I spent my New Years Eve sobbing into my sister-in-law’s arms because I did not get invited anywhere, saw pictures and videos on social media that I didn’t want to see, and began to feel utterly alone in the world. What’s sad about all of this is that I had absolutely everything I needed in that moment: my entire family was under one roof at the same time again. It took me looking at my phone for not even a minute out of instinct for my whole world to shatter into a million pieces. FOMO is very real, and nothing hurts more than seeing everybody you know together and happy while you’re at home laying on the couch on New Years Eve. Once I saw just a little, I was addicted. Even though it destroyed me, I was hooked and could not stop updating my phone to see pictures, snapchats, etc., because I wanted to experience that too. What I also realized over break was how easy it is to discover something you do not want to see, whether that be seeing old friends get together or even catching somebody you trust in a lie. Although we try to block this out and try to put our phone away, we simply can’t because of how toxic it is. Social media without-a-doubt kills people emotionally.
As a first-year in college, I’m very guilty of this as well. Women strive for perfection, and we would risk our lives to get that. My life isn’t perfect. My grades are not what they used to be in the slightest, I haven’t fully committed to an internship yet, I’ve been terribly homesick to the point where I either drive home or call my parents sobbing, I lost friends who I used to be very close to, and I’m still trying to tell myself my worth and that I deserve better. Life seems perfect on social media, but for first-years, including myself, most of the time life is not perfect and we need to stop pretending that it is when we know it’s not. We run into many crossroads along the way, but those crossroads are what makes us stronger and brings us that much closer to happiness.
