Wishing for a real life ?
A website called whisper.sh is hugely popular these days –their mantra? You can say anything here, even the things you cannot tell your best friend because as it turns out Internet has made us “game face” people.
Facebook glamourizes the lives of people than it really is. All the time we are seeing pictures of friends vacationing in an exotic place, or couples taking romantic pictures –in all trying to show only our best face to friends. If you think about it, is it possible that in the 10-day vacation you took –everything would have been bliss? Kids would have fought, couples would have disagreed over the choice of restaurant and at least one day –nothing seem to have worked out the way it was planned. But when you post pictures –everything just looks perfect, whether you are using Photoshop to edit the pictures or just showing the world only the good ones- there is nothing wrong with this-it’s just that life is not perfect and we are showing a false picture. Social media has made us fake, we are constantly under pressure to look good, to sound good and to even show a perfect life. No longer are we showing the true picture, or perhaps the truth has even blurred…
We would assume that if all we are seeing is happy pictures and motivational quotes then life would be happier. In fact, it is opposite that is true. Research shows that Facebook causes depression. The study by University of Michigan stated that more time a person spent on Facebook, the worse his mood was. Feelings of jealousy, loneliness, of being left out infiltrate when we are constantly seeing the happy lives of others. In reality nobody’s life is perfect, everybody has the same fears, same insecurities –it’s just that now we just have our “game face” on all the time.
Facebook causes depression and makes people narcissistic, yet we are not able to control the addiction. Maybe, now it has become a part of us to look into the lives of friends and family –but is it really helping? Is there one person out there who could say that I don’t feel jealous at all when I see a friend’s kid excelling? Is there a need for these negative emotions?
Popularity of a website like whisper which allows you to be anonymous so that you can share your real, true thoughts just proves that while internet is making the lives of people public but thoughts and feelings extremely private. The omnipresent social media in our lives has given us the false illusion of companionship and has limited our discussion and sharing to only the happy things of our life-well, we all know that life is not that. Maybe we need to switch off Facebook and start living a real life.
Images sourced from whisper.sh