Sun, Sea and Social Media
My relationship with social media is skewed at best, and self-destructive at its worst. I've always been quite sensitive to social media and the amped up portrayals of life we all share on those platforms, but the summer is always the time it hits me hardest.
Through the rest of the year, I'll sometimes realise that I'm getting a bit too sad and scroll-y, and delete the apps on my phone for a week or so to try and break the habit of endlessly finding people to compare myself to. I try and stay quite on it with how I use all of the platforms I'm on, in fact, my new years resolution this year was to only use social media actively. So I tried to maintain that I shouldn't be on Twitter unless I have something to say, I shouldn't be going on Instagram unless I'm posting a picture, I shouldn't be lurking on Facebook unless I'm commenting on my friends posts. But summer comes and shit hits the fan.
It's a combination of things that turns me into a sadness-dwelling scroller in summer. Term time for me has an irregular but constant timetable, with friends consistently available, and really clear 'time off'. Summer is a weird new schedule which remains regular because I work, but has a quieter combination of more free time and less friends available to spend it with. Although the first few days usually feel like a huge sigh of relief that I've (kind of) stopped for a second, the event-less blank diary pages soon go from blissful to bleak. Before long I'm shacked up in a ship called Shame sailing across the scrolling social media sea.
I am able to tackle these feelings better than I did as a teen. When I was 16 I put a post-it on my laptop that said 'don't go on Facebook after 8pm!'. That was the first time I'd really felt that scrolling on social media had made me feel sadder, from seeing pictures of classmates at parties and on holidays that had me feeling like I was being left out of all the fun. I didn't recognise it then, but it was just a response to believing the edited pictures of parties made more glam than they were by hyped up captions.
I'll be posting Instagram's of cocktails and the beach when I go on holiday, and this post isn't against social media or anyone posting whatever they want to post. I love twitter's ability to put me in the middle of a conversation with all the other Love Island-ers going crazy over "on paper", I love that Instagram gives me inspiration on clothes and restaurants to visit, I love that Facebook means I've seen my long distance cousins grow up. I love social media platforms and will probably like and post avidly until their death days. I just wanted to take a minute to encourage everyone who's 2 years deep on a strangers Instagram beating themselves up for not getting that summer internship from heaven AND having a fab boyfriend too to remind themselves that social media really is a perception. It's the window display of dreamy dresses that turn out to have clips at the back shaping them in all the right places. It's the artfully put together avocado on toast that, when eaten, actually has far too much avocado to toast ratio. It's the perfect sunset picture taken seconds before the photographer threw the phone into the sand at the request 'wait, one more with my hair this way'. I wish someone had told me this when I was banning myself from Facebook and wondering why I felt so inadequate in my sixteenth summer.
Be supportive to your pals and stay positive about yourself on social media this summer, we're all having an equally sun-kissed and sunburnt summer x
Through the rest of the year, I'll sometimes realise that I'm getting a bit too sad and scroll-y, and delete the apps on my phone for a week or so to try and break the habit of endlessly finding people to compare myself to. I try and stay quite on it with how I use all of the platforms I'm on, in fact, my new years resolution this year was to only use social media actively. So I tried to maintain that I shouldn't be on Twitter unless I have something to say, I shouldn't be going on Instagram unless I'm posting a picture, I shouldn't be lurking on Facebook unless I'm commenting on my friends posts. But summer comes and shit hits the fan.
It's a combination of things that turns me into a sadness-dwelling scroller in summer. Term time for me has an irregular but constant timetable, with friends consistently available, and really clear 'time off'. Summer is a weird new schedule which remains regular because I work, but has a quieter combination of more free time and less friends available to spend it with. Although the first few days usually feel like a huge sigh of relief that I've (kind of) stopped for a second, the event-less blank diary pages soon go from blissful to bleak. Before long I'm shacked up in a ship called Shame sailing across the scrolling social media sea.
I am able to tackle these feelings better than I did as a teen. When I was 16 I put a post-it on my laptop that said 'don't go on Facebook after 8pm!'. That was the first time I'd really felt that scrolling on social media had made me feel sadder, from seeing pictures of classmates at parties and on holidays that had me feeling like I was being left out of all the fun. I didn't recognise it then, but it was just a response to believing the edited pictures of parties made more glam than they were by hyped up captions.
I'll be posting Instagram's of cocktails and the beach when I go on holiday, and this post isn't against social media or anyone posting whatever they want to post. I love twitter's ability to put me in the middle of a conversation with all the other Love Island-ers going crazy over "on paper", I love that Instagram gives me inspiration on clothes and restaurants to visit, I love that Facebook means I've seen my long distance cousins grow up. I love social media platforms and will probably like and post avidly until their death days. I just wanted to take a minute to encourage everyone who's 2 years deep on a strangers Instagram beating themselves up for not getting that summer internship from heaven AND having a fab boyfriend too to remind themselves that social media really is a perception. It's the window display of dreamy dresses that turn out to have clips at the back shaping them in all the right places. It's the artfully put together avocado on toast that, when eaten, actually has far too much avocado to toast ratio. It's the perfect sunset picture taken seconds before the photographer threw the phone into the sand at the request 'wait, one more with my hair this way'. I wish someone had told me this when I was banning myself from Facebook and wondering why I felt so inadequate in my sixteenth summer.
Be supportive to your pals and stay positive about yourself on social media this summer, we're all having an equally sun-kissed and sunburnt summer x
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