Almost all of us are present and active on one or more social media platforms. And if we check our screen time, it will be quite evident that we do spend a substantial amount of our time on social media – whether posting about our new job, or just uploading some random pics, or mentioning a new check-in or just generally scrolling away to kill time.

Now, social media is a double-edged sword. While, it does have its set of Pros – such as allowing for business promotions, spreading awareness and so on…..it also has a whole other side – the other edge – which is that of COMPARISON. This edge is quite sharp, and without us even realizing it or being aware of this, it starts to slowly and subtly pierce our inner-self and we start bleeding. How you ask….Let me explain…

Let us understand what is this COMPARISON all about and how does it create the impact that it does.

So, say, for instance, we put up a picture on Instagram or Facebook, now you may have noticed that what usually happens is that we tend to constantly check the number of likes or reactions on that pic, and if the number of likes/ reactions are less than those on our previous picture or on someone else’s picture, we make an instant conclusion that we are probably not looking good enough in the picture or that people don’t like us or value us as much. Now at the superficial level, this may seem like a normal thing, but if we take a deeper look at it, we will realize that what it actually means is that we have “outsourced” our self-worth, which then means that it is no longer “SELF” – worth, instead it is our worth as determined by others! In this continual process of seeking validation i.e. likes and reactions from others, we completely lose our sense of self and eventually self-worth, which, honestly is quite saddening.

Now, delving a bit deeper into the workings of the social media world, we have even started gauging our relationships on the basis of who does and doesn’t like or comment on our posts. One who does – becomes our close one, our favourite, our near and dear one, while one who doesn’t is not considered close. Even if the reality maybe the exact opposite of this thinking process that we harbour. And these thoughts – that the person is not close to us because they did not respond on a social media platform, result in us sending out vibrations of disconnection to that person, eventually causing the relationship to just crumble.

It is time we came out of this fake world of comparison (social media) – and realised that this is a world where people portray mainly the happy facets of their life, irrespective of whether that is true or not. Not many people really post about painful or sad events in their life especially – their break ups, set-backs, etc.