How to Avoid Feeling Insecure on Social Media

One glimpse at the
Instagram model’s perfect smile brings a spike of negative emotion. Why can’t
your smile look that good, your clothes look that nice, or your friends look
that happy?

Social media
insecurity is a well-documented phenomenon. The human brain is programmed to
always try to understand your place in the social hierarchy. It’s both a tool
for motivation and a tool for survival. You need to know what is possible so
you can strive to achieve it, and you need to know who’s better than you so that
you can either follow or avoid them.

Social media,
however, makes that totally sensible system spin out of control.

A window into every life

Throughout most of
our existence on Earth, humans existed in tribes of hunter-gatherers. Human
tribes were groups of 50 to 300 people. Not coincidentally, the latter is also
our upper limit for keeping track of names and relationships; scientists
estimate that we can keep track of three hundred people in our lives, and we
can comfortably maintain about 150 stable relationships. More than that and we
start to get confused.

Our value
assessment systems mentioned above were developed to deal with this state of
affairs: to tribes of three hundred people at most. Back then, having status
meant having a slightly nicer piece of animal skin, or being able to throw a
spear further than the others. There wasn’t such massive income inequality in
the world or such a massive number of people competing for attention.

It used to be that
the best smile you could see was the prettiest smile out of three hundred
people. Now, if you follow an influencer, you’re likely seeing the prettiest
smile out of billions of smiles. A smile that has been further improved through
thousands of dollars of spending, many photography tricks, and just a little
bit of photo editing to make it perfect. It’s not fair to compare any person’s
smile to that supercharged image you see on social media, but your brain
doesn’t know that, hence the insecurity.

What can you do about it?

There are a series
of steps you can take in order to avoid feeling bad about yourself when
browsing social media. Most of them have to do with putting into context the
images you see on screen and understanding that they’re not real, not really.
They’re as real as the exaggerated displays of might you see in superhero
movies.

Here are some
things you should remind yourself whenever you feel insecure on social media.

1 – Most of the
best pictures are heavily staged and edited.

2 – People only
show the best part of themselves online, glossing over their flaws.

3 – Anyone can fake
a great smile, no matter how cranky they really feel.

4 – The people who
make you feel insecure are also full of insecurities themselves.

5 – You would also
look great if you spent that much money on yourself, and had a team around you
managing your image.

Of course, it’s also good to take breaks from
time to time and make sure to follow normal people on top of those who look
like they have perfect lives. Finally, if you deal with anxiety on top of
feeling insecure, it’s always good to implement some natural calming remedies
into your routine. Check out Cibdol.com if you’d like to learn more about
those.

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