Everyone knows that girl. The girl who appears to have the picture perfect life. You envy her for her beauty and lifestyle. Not to mention her Gram game is straight fire. Through her postings, it appears that she has the happiest life on the planet. When in reality, it’s just an artificial construction of happiness.
As we scroll upon that girl who has a drop dead gorgeous selfie, we compare ourselves to her. We may think, “Wow, why can’t I be more like her? Why can’t I be as happy as she? Why can’t I have a life like her?” Turns out, that girl probably spent a good half hour trying to conjure up the perfect caption and the perfect filter. And that look on her face right now is anything but that smiling face that she just posted. You see, she would rather paint a mask of happiness to hide her inner struggles. Of course, she may have genuine moments of happiness but ultimately, she is not showing the virtual world the true her, but an edited version of her. Now she’s not the only one guilty of this, we are all guilty of this.
Let’s be real, posting can be viewed as a “public appearance”. People post every once in awhile to show others what’s going on in their life. When posting, people have a tendency to post only happy, positive photos, and comments. The thought process is that no one wants to show others the hardships they are going through. So instead, we filter out the bad moments because we are the generation of filters. We filter our looks and our lives.
We could be crying in the morning and posting a smiling selfie that same afternoon. Not everyone has great days. It’s normal. So what is all of this? It’s the happiness effect. People use social media to receive positive affirmation about their lives.
Society is unfortunately at fault. Society gives people the mentality and the expectation to post constant highlights and smiles on social media. The fear of alarming others or having the potential to be viewed as invisible is too much to bare. To avoid that fear, people put on a smile and carry on.
At the end of the day, that girl who appears to have a picture perfect life is just like you. She enjoys the outdoors, but you won’t see her climbing a mountain every day. She likes to eat healthy, but will always be down for stuffing her face with pizza and ice cream. The real her is just like you. But the virtual her says another message, it says not everything is as it seems.