It’s an all-to familiar story: you stumble across a photo of your friend/co-worker/long-lost schoolmate with her beautifully symmetrically breakfast arrangement, and you look down at your Frosties feeling horrendously inadequate. Now, a new study has shown just how damaging this might be, with over a third (35%) of girls aged between 11 and 21 saying that comparing their lives unfavourably with others’ is their biggest cause of internet-related stress.
The poll, which was conducted by UK Charity Girlguiding and surveyed 1000 young women and girls, showed that many feel under pressure online to create an idealised version of their life – so much so that it’s affecting their mental health. And although it’s totally normal get a pang of jealousy at someone’s Caribbean holiday or perfectly photogenic puppy, the feeling of being perpetually left out (or that somehow you alone have an imperfect life) is ultimately draining and damaging for self-esteem.
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With the rise of over-sharing apps such as Snapchat and Instagram (the latter of which was recently voted the worst platform for mental health) everyone has semi-become their own publicist, promoting their personal brand. It is entirely possible to build a narrative of your life, post by post, which is at best airbrushed, and at worst totally fabricated. Watching on social media as someone appears to have had an epic night out on Friday, look perfect at brunch on Saturday, and run 10k on Sunday, is naturally going to create doubts over how and if your own life measures up.
Not only this, but extreme-vetting can even manipulate your own memory. You might be looking back in longing at perfect pictures from summer 2012, forgetting that you spent half the trip with food poisoning after eating at that beautiful restaurant, because (duh) that news didn’t make it onto your timeline.
Labour MP Jess Philips commented that this falsified perfection means that women are left pursing 'some unattainable goal of how our faces, bodies, homes and lifestyles should be' and that the way we market ourselves online 'seeps into real life and sees women feeling inferior.'
Problematically, particularly given the young age of some of the respondents, the survey indicated a big discrepancy between how girls and their parents perceive the problem – with only 12% of girls saying their parents were concerned about them making these comparisons. The survey found that less than half of respondents felt their parents adequaltey understood the pressures of being online.
Ruth Marvel, deputy chief executive of Girlguiding, says that girls are dealing with the 'increasing pressure to live the "perfect" life online and the negative impact this is having on their wellbeing,' adding: 'We need to listen and take girls’ voices seriously to protect their happiness, wellbeing and opportunities in life, both online and offline.'
This means drumming into young people that there is nothing wrong with imperfection, and making sure we aren’t selling them an unobtainable and manipulated pipedream. There have, however, been some instances to help people build up resilience to these pressures – Thai photographer Chompoo Baritone’s photo series, and a recent video by U.S anti-bullying organisation Ditch The Label highlight how social media perfection often has no bearing on reality.
So, next time you’re at the beach, don’t feel bad about your sunburnt nose or the sand in your Pina Colada – it’s completely normal, I promise.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.