In today’s society, social media is the place for all things “perfect” in everyone’s life, as they highlight all of the good stuff. In reality, everyone enjoys unwinding the day with doom scrolling on TikTok or Instagram, but many do not realize that most of what they see is a painted picture. It is so easy to be convinced and believe that one person’s life is perfect as they are happier, more successful, or better looking than others. When others view this illusion, they start to second-guess their looks and actions in their own lives. Social media creates an unrealistic standard of how someone should live their life or the way they should look. Social media creates an illusion of the perfect life by encouraging people to compare themselves to others, influencing their mental health.Â
One of the biggest ways social media creates an illusion is through comparison. Many people mainly focus on how many likes or comments they get on each post, which is a form of validation for many. Many people on social media only post their best pictures or moments, such as vacations, birthdays, or awards, and hide the bad moments or failures that they experience. When people are only posting one side of their lives, it leads to viewers believing that people are living better lives than themselves. Many people feel pressure to match the aesthetic, an action of others’ posts, or a trend that is popular, and forget that social media only shows an extremely filtered version of people’s lives. People who create comparisons in their heads based on others’ posts struggle largely with mental health. When someone is constantly seeing others highlighting the best parts of their life, they may fall into feelings of anxiety and depression because they are distracted by the events in their own life.Â
Another large factor in the illusion of social media is how many editing tools and filters are used. There are so many apps online now that easily make a midocure picture look as if it were shot by a professional, or the person does not even look kike that in real life. While lightly editing a picture may not be a good deal, heavily editing before posting creates an unrealistic illusion of what the beauty standard should be. Many influencers with a large following post heavily edited pictures, which makes people think their lives are perfect, which also heavily affects the way they perceive themselves. Many viewers start to believe that their lives are not worthy for others to view or that their posts are not good enough for different platforms. The thought of constant validation can lead to a large mental health decline.Â
Social media has increasingly become a comparison platform with people, leading to many requiring constant validation. There is constant comparison and issues with mental health when viewers constantly see the “perfect life”. Social media is a platform for all things false and has made it really easy for users to shape the perfect picture of their lives. This issue can easily be helped if social media users realize that perfection on social media is not real, and we need to learn to appreciate how well we are doing in our own lives. A person can not achieve happiness from comparing likes and followers, but from being happy with who they are.