Girls, we’ve all been there… you’re stuffing your face with copious amounts of food whilst lazily scrolling through your Instagram, and you come across a photo of a bikini clad babe looking as bronzed and golden as you ought to be. Your appetite shrinks immediately (unlike some other things), and you feel guilty for not looking like her on the screen.
But the reality is, most of the time even her on the screen doesn’t look like “her on the screen”.
So are Instagram and other photo sharing apps making unduly large dents in our self-confidence? Is self-esteem dropping faster than weight loss, to the point where it’s got to stop?
I asked three women from the University of East London to express their opinions.
All three women said similar things about feeling less confident because of social media pressure. This prompted me to look further into the issue.
According to Anxiety.org, such feelings are so common that they merit a new term, ‘compare and despair’, defined as: “feelings of self-consciousness or a need for perfectionism, which often manifests itself into social anxiety or pervasive thoughts indicative of Obsessive-compulsive Disorder.”
If you are feeling too tied up with social media to let it go, but you know it’s making you feel bad, give these accounts a follow and they’ll give you a bit of a lift.
@gemmacorrell @rubyetc_ @pranitart
Seeing small reminders that you’re not the only one who isn’t a bikini clad bronzed goddess on a beach in Bali, may help combat the anxiety that social media are bringing into our lives
