Posting a picture with someone doesn’t necessarily mean they’re super close friends. Don’t worry if everyone else you know seems to have found their long lost best friend within their first week of college. People like to be seen with people who make them look good so they may be tempted to post something with a pretty cool person they just met. They might have hopes of getting closer with that person. Maybe, they just decided they looked good that night so they asked a new friend to hop in their selfie so it would look more like a post about friendship than a “Look how awesome I look tonight!” post.
It’s easy to only show the good things on social media. That doesn’t mean bad things aren’t happening too. No one is perfect, but people have gotten pretty good at appearing that way on the internet. Before you get too jealous of anyone, remind yourself they no one is perfect! Sure, after scrolling through pictures and posts showing parties, awesome friends and beautiful campuses you might start to think the people you’re following are having the absolute time of their lives. This can be a little depressing if you yourself are not feeling the same way yet. What they’re not posting about though are the essays they forgot to turn in, the friends that got mad at them and that one night they felt bored and lonely. Keep in mind thatsocial media only shows a small window into someone’s life.
Likes don’t buy happiness. In this day and age, it is easy to get obsessed with the number of likes you get. It’s also not hard to forget how little a “like” means. Say someone posts a really pretty picture and they get 200+ likes. Then what? Sure friends, and mostly strangers may admire her looks, but this says nothing about her character. People often scroll through social media “liking” anything and everything. So take the number of “likes” someone gets with a grain of salt and don’t let it trick you into thinking that person has more friends than you do.
Stop comparing yourself! One of the major aspects of social media is comparison. Posting becomes a competition of portraying perfection and gathering likes. Remember that comparing yourself to others only causes feelings of jealousy and brings you down! Not comparing yourself can be difficult to do when one post after another shows other people with carefully done make up, expensive clothes with amazing bodies. When people post pictures of their amazing vacations and their healthy, close families it can make some people feel like they have nothing compared to the people they follow on the internet. However, it is important to try your hardest to remind yourself what makes you special and important. Maybe those girls on your feed with amazing hair wish they had your awesome eye color.