Her alarm goes off. She turns over to hit snooze and sees thatit's7:00 a.m.She clicksopeninstagram, the top social media app, hecks if the people she texted last nighthavereplied or if they have made an effort to say goodmorning. She thenproceeds to checkothers’ stories, the stories everyone fakes. Caption: “studying at starbucks' ', in reality they just bought overpriced coffee and layed out their notebooks to assume an image of a smart productive girl but in reality, falling apart due to assignments and anxious about deadlines.
But with no proper backstory, all she sees is anintelligent andproductive person who has life together while she realizes that it could never be her.
Instagram story is onestrange concept. Posting a snippet of your life (an over-glorified one at that and it only lasting 24 hours? When tapping once means another person’s story and twice means two others, she has consumed at least twenty of said ‘daily lives’ only a few momentsafter wakingup. The act of unconsciouslycomparing herself toothers' casualposting means she starts every single day off on a wrong foot, one filled with envy and insecurity. She's known as the girl whois alwaysonline, her status is consistently painted green. But under that brightlycolored circle waspure obsession. . Wondering why people aren't taking time out of their day to text her back or why they aren't putting in as much effort as her ,these irreverent concerns and worriesfloodher head at 7 in the morning. But should they even matter this much?
While getting ready all she is worried about is her online presence instead of being aware of her surroundings and staying in the present.
When it’s time for her to do her makeup, she grabs all her products. Looking at them, she wonders why they aren't aesthetically pleasing or the ones influencers own and showcase so well. Sitting down in front of the mirror and looking directly at herself without that comparative mindset is simply impossible at this age. With unrealistic expectations and absurd beauty standards fuelled by social media,in the mirrorbecame a moment she’d like to skip and draw away. Theblending of her concealer onto her bare skin turns into pure disgust for acne; the sketching of the eyeliner she draws transforms into hate for her eye shape; the shade of lipstick she puts on determines the message she sends out to the world that day.But why must it be this way? Such usage completely contradicts the purpose of amirror. Thisreflective piece of glass should be used to admire your features and not to compare your raw self to someone else’s photoshopped photographs.
As she grabs her bag and runs down stairs, her mom asks if she wants breakfast. Her natural response was of course,no. If cutting out a whole meal that would fuel her for the day and help nourish her body and mind is what it takes to attempt to look like those perfect bodies on her feed,she was willing to do it. Her ride to school wasfilled with flicking,scrolling andtapping thescreen to see what others appear to be up to. As she sets foot into school a rush of insecurities-filled questions roam her mind, “o I look different from my online self?” or “Do people at school find my stories embarrassing?” In reality no one cares about you that much to sit and think about all those concerns since they are also probably too busy doing what you're doing, worrying about themselves.
Now the worst 8 hours of her day begins. Felt like torture, her phone is kept in a locked box for the entire school day.She was so obsessed with the who, what, where, when, and why aspects of people. She felt like she was missing out on everything, like she was deleted from the world and put inside a bubble.
But she should havetakenthis as a chance to start living in the real world. The moment the clock strikes 3,she dashes to get her phone, flicking through her notifications. Excited by some but disappointed in the lack of presence from others. The adrenaline rush drops too quickly when she finds that her texts are left on delivery. She gets home, drops everything on the floor and clicks on probably the most damaging app ever, Tiktok: A social media application consisting of short videos. Why are we so addicted to it? The serotonin we get from watching a 30 second video on this app is insane and of course we crave it more and more. This is how she ends up spending hours and hours on this app in just one sitting and how five minutes turns into 50 minutes then into 5 hours. But why is it that a 50 minute lesson in school feels so draining but 50 minutes on this app feels like a reward? It’s because of instant gratification, getting what we want in such a short amount of time. This is why some social media addicts have such a hard time focusing on something that takes a long time to yield results andhave a shorterattention span on average.
If we are used to absorbing information in the span of a minute but are made to listen and stay focused for an hour in school, how can our brains handle something we're not used to? This is why it is so harmful, by her not being able to focus for a long period of time, it can lead to anxiety and frustrations. Her self confidence, focus, productivity, social life, all that goes down with her just because of the constant crave to fulfill her addiction for this drug we all know as social media.