The relationship women have with mental health is determined by a number of factors that impact our everyday lives. One of the most prominent factors that has risen dramatically, in the most recent decade, is the use of social media in our society today.
The world of social media is a relatively new concept. The majority of our parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents, did not grow up in an age where posting status updates was deemed the most important part of your day. When they were our age, going out to drinks with friends didn’t include posing for pictures for ten minutes, determining which one would look best on an Instagram feed, or which angle is the most flattering.
Up until recently, I had determined my own personal relationship with my social media platforms was causing no harm. To me, posting on Instagram, scrolling through Twitter and TikTok, was just a way to pass time, to learn more about the community around me, and to keep up to date with pop culture.
However, through closer reflection, I can pinpoint several moments in my life where social media has taken a drastic toll on my own emotional and mental health.
I reflect on one of the first times I can remember feeling disgusted with my appearance on social media.
A post from one of my childhood friends, at her thirteenth birthday party brought up this distinct feeling. Surrounded by all my best friends, eating the tastiest cake and ice cream, I had been having genuine fun, and was perfectly content at that moment. It wasn’t until I got home the next day that I took a second to glance at Instagram.
The presence of this app amongst my friend group was fairly new, and we had all enjoyed posting random bits of our days, keeping each other in the loop. The image that was portrayed through the screen of my old iPod halted my scroll, and I was immediately horrified.
Taken after the birthday party, right after eating the cake, we had been asked to stand up and pose around the birthday girl. The first thing that caught my attention in this image was my stomach. I had been wearing a tight shirt, and was visibly bloated. Intrusive thoughts began to cloud my mind, I felt disgusted, my skin started to itch, I wanted to jump out of my body and never return.
Scrolling down a few posts, a Victoria’s Secret model had just posted a new photo too. I had probably scrolled back and forth between the two for at least twenty minutes. Why doesn’t my stomach look that defined? Why aren’t I lean and tall like she is? Never once in that moment did it occur to me how normal of an occurrence being bloated was for a human body, especially after eating cake and ice cream.
Looking back, this reaction was only the start to what would be years of comparison between myself, and unrealistic beauty standards.
The way young women’s brains are structured at the crucial age during our teenage years is tricky. Our minds are still developing, still shaping into their complete form. It is incredibly difficult to steer away from negative thoughts surrounding oneself, all while the media we consume is different from this agenda. Seeing a false reality everyday that is presented to us through our social media pages is harmful, and takes a toll on our mental health. Young girls can no longer scroll without living in a constant state of comparison. It even goes further than just body image.
The way we use social media today has almost completely flipped since the start of it. What was once a fun platform to share silly pictures of friends, many now use apps such as Tiktok or Instagram to compare themselves to other people they don’t even know in real life. Constantly wishing they had things these other girls have, or wishing they could go on the cool trip that one influencer just went on.
Since I have recognized my mind had drifted into a constant state of comparison to others, I worked hard to get myself out of that mindset. It’s important as women to learn and understand that there is no certain way our body, hair, face, or appearance is supposed to look. There is no “normal”. The beauty of the human kind is that everyone is different. Allowing myself to break free from this mindset was eye opening and changed my life for the better.
Living in a constant state of comparison is draining, exhausting, and unhealthy, especially for young girls and adolescents. The fortunate part of this reality though, is that I believe we are beginning to see change. A larger variety of women, all shapes, sizes, races, are now being used to advertise and sell clothes in fashion shows, or advertisements.
This inclusivity is important, as this is the reality of the world we live in. We can only hope that as the years continue to pass, this change will continue, that way the next generation of teens will look up to representation of real women, and not just the small percentage of women that fit an unrealistic and “perfect” demographic.