Social Media & The Fallacy of a Perfect Life

My name is Maggie, and I’m addicted to social media. I’ll gladly admit it. And if you know me even a little, you’ll probably fully reinforce this statement. Even if you don’t know me in real life, I’m guessing you arrived at this post through some form of social media.

Look, there’s a lot of good that comes from social. (like, I don’t know, my paycheck for example: I’m a social media marketer by trade.) But aside from that very important factor (to me, haha) there’s a lot of other positive things about social media.

People form support groups and meet new friends and even rally together to raise funds for noble causes. Businesses have been using it to make real connections with – and learn from – their customers.

But the dark side – or perhaps I should say, the green side – of social media is very real. I’m talking about jealousy… and the fallacy of believing your social media friends have a perfect life.

Those Not So Perfect Lives

It’s easy to scroll through your newsfeed today and see photo after photo, status after status, of people getting engaged, announcing births, traveling the world, and feeding their significant other homemade pasta at their organic pasta making class.

Oh, and that significant other is perfect and their best friend and they never fight – ever – because they’re soulmates, and obviously soulmates never fight about anything. (FYI, in my opinion, just because you fight or have struggles or disagreements doesn’t mean you’re not happy in your relationship.)

Or maybe you notice your “friends” (or perhaps we should call them acquaintances) announcing their new job or promotion at that amazing company you wished you worked for.

Or maybe you’re struggling to lose weight, and it seems like all you see in your feed are people who are achieving the body you want while only doing "fun" workouts and drinking shakes and fitting donuts and ice cream into their "macros". (But let's be real, I realize this is not the case… and you should too. Fitness takes hard work and discipline.)

It’s just not fair.

As humans, it’s easy to look around and focus on everything we’re not. We’re not traveling the world, we’re not getting promoted, we’re not getting a beach bod by eating donuts. That is the biggest problem I’m having with social media these days.

In fact, a recent article in Forbes cited that “people who use social media very frequently have 2.7 times the likelihood of depression.” And there are many other studies and articles that talk about this same topic.

What we have to remember – and I’ve heard this a thousand times – is that social media is other people’s highlight reels, and yet we often only focus on our own outtakes.

I particularly struggle with envying people who travel a lot. You know the type I’m talking about – the people who seem as though they’re always on vacation. They’re constantly posting photos of the airplane wing in the clouds from the window seat and gallivanting to new destinations multiple times a year. Where do you work that you have that much vacation time – and where do you get the money?!

A few months ago I went to a friend’s wedding. We had just returned from a 10-day wine cruise on the Danube River, making our way through multiple European cities, so a lot of people were asking us about the trip.

Later on during the reception, a friend who I hadn’t seen in quite some time came up to me and, after a few pleasantries, said, “what kinds of drugs are you selling that you can afford to travel so much?!”

That question stopped me in my tracks. Here I was, overanalyzing other people’s travel budgets & time off, while someone else thought the same thing about me. (For the record, we booked the trip really early and budgeted it in over the course of a year.)

I don’t know about you, but I definitely focus a lot on what other people have instead of realizing all that I have. In a way, I think our society sets us up to feel this way – the notion of the rat race. Unfortunately, it’s a race you really can’t win.

Real & Authentic

There’s a lot of talk in the social media marketing world about the importance of being “real” and “authentic” in your marketing. People can see through the marketing BS pretty easily, so it’s imperative to keep things transparent. I think this translates to our personal lives, too.

Why is it, though, that we can see through the BS when it comes to a company’s marketing, but we so easily believe that it’s entirely possible for the people we’re actually connected with to have a perfect life? Why do we fall into this trap of believing that everyone in our feed is being real and authentic every day, all the time?

Now, I don’t think “being real” equates to “complaining about every little thing that goes wrong” or being a Debbie Downer. No, I don’t think that’s what that means at all. I just think that being real on social media means not completely exaggerating your ups and not downplaying your downs. It’s okay to post when you’re having a hard time. It’s okay (and encouraged!) to post when you have accomplished something. Brag on yourself, yaaassss!

But the thing I think we need to remember above all is to not let other people’s accomplishments (or “perfect lives”) downplay the successes and amazing things that are happening in our own lives. Just because someone else’s candle is burning doesn’t mean yours isn’t bright, too. So how can we do this?

Stay Connected With Real Friends

Use social media to stay connected with your real, true friends. Nurture the connections that matter. I’m not one to say “do a social media purge,” but if that’s what will help you, do it. Or maybe make a list of your closest friends or people who you really want to stay connected to, and arrange your Facebook timeline so that their posts come up first. Hide anything from your newsfeed that doesn’t interest you or makes you feel bad.

Be Grateful

Keep a gratitude journal, or make a habit of starting the day with thinking about what you’re grateful for. It’s easy to let the day go by and wish you had someone else’s life. But if you are deliberate about remembering the good things in your life, you’ll be less likely to dwell on the bad things.

Social media can be used for a lot of significant (and cool) things. It’s an awesome way to stay connected to friends and family who may have moved or are on the go. It can help people raise awareness for important causes and events.

But if you find yourself buying into the fallacy of (someone else’s) perfect life, take some time to remember your own highlight reel – I bet it’s pretty amazing.