If you know anything about social media, you know how toxic it can be at times.
Instagram’s entire culture thrives on leading young girls down a rabbit hole of comparison and feeling unconfident in their own skin. Snapchat becomes uncool immediately after leaving high school, and TikTok has definitely ruined our generation’s attention spans.
This is exactly why I believe that Pinterest is by far the best social media platform, and it definitely does not get enough credit. It’s a positive space of people sharing what they love or find aesthetically pleasing, and it makes the internet actually feel enjoyable and creative.
Pinterest provides a non-toxic space that allows individuals to share their creative visions and post what they actually like with no judgment involved. Yes, there is a comment and DM feature on the app, but there’s arguably no negativity.
Compared to the comment sections on Instagram and TikTok? Pinterest’s toxicity is almost nonexistent. Personally, whenever I use the DM feature, it’s mainly to share fun recipes or cute apartment inspiration with my friends and my sister.
Pinterest is more user-centered than any other app. You can post and pin what you like, not what gets the most likes or comments. It is simply fun.
The best part is that you don’t have to follow anyone you know in real life, so the issues of negativity and comparison don’t matter. Of course, comparison will always exist regardless of any social media, but Pinterest is different because nobody is using it to compare themselves to people they’re in close proximity to. With Pinterest, scrolling for hours becomes fun rather than anxiety-inducing.
Not only is Pinterest generally less toxic than other social media platforms, but it’s also a much bigger source for creativity than any other. For the entire past year, I’ve switched from scrolling on Instagram and TikTok as soon as I wake up to using Pinterest when I get out of bed. This gives me so much more inspiration for getting ready in the morning and helps me figure out what I want to do with my hair, makeup and outfit.
Now, instead of worrying about what people from my hometown posted the night before, I get to plan out my outfit and actually have motivation to get up in the mornings. In general, using Pinterest instead of other social media in the morning has definitely helped lower my anxiety levels.
In my opinion, Pinterest is more of an artistic platform than a genuine social media app. One of my favorite pastimes is creating boards, varying from fashion-related to arts and crafts ideas to genuine vision boards of what I want my life to look like.
For me, an absolute must every New Year is creating a Pinterest vision board to picture how I want to improve my life and set fresh goals for the New Year.
Another underrated feature of Pinterest is its ability to reverse search anything in an image — something I’ve found to be incredibly helpful when hunting down a specific article of clothing.
With this, I rarely have to worry about someone on TikTok gatekeeping what dress they’re wearing; I can just screenshot it and put it into Pinterest’s search engine. Based on the image being looked up, it also gives other recommendations for similar photos, overall providing many resources for users to find and share what they love in picture format.
The typical social media apps can become so draining at times, but Pinterest provides a healthy balance and an escape from the toxicity and negativity surrounding apps like Instagram or TikTok. Ever since I started using Pinterest as my main social media, I’ve noticed that I’ve become a much more creative person and my life has significantly improved.