Social Media Rabbit Hole

I'm going back to a topic that I talked about earlier on my blog-the pressures of social media.  

I remember when I was first introduced to Myspace way back when and it was like a new world had opened up in front of me.  It was a-ma-zing!  Who didn't spend hours upon hours scrolling through the "online now" profiles, changing the layout and look of your page, and updating your bio to tell everyone who the real-you was?  I know that I did.

And that all sounds like rainbows and fluff but then comes to other side.  Social media is a vortex.  You can easily start to go down the rabbit hole of comparison, judging, and anxiety.  I've been there, I've done that, and truthfully I still do it at times.  I've really had to learn when it's time to scale back and take a break from the app life.  And it's cliche to say that social media is the highlight reel of someone's life.  No duh.  We all KNOW that but we don't KNOW that, ya know?

It's easy to begin to compare when someone else (whether we know them personally or not) is relatable, likable (to us), and posts great content or has the "perfect body" or is "living the dream."  I can truthfully say here that there is one person who I used to know and her life seems amazing, exciting, and perfect.  She rarely updates but when she does, man, I get sucked in.  Internally the comparing begins.  She lives in a cooler city, she travels a lot more, she's thinner, she's prettier, she has a better life, etc.

And when I see it all typed out like that-I feel upset with myself.  If that were one of my friends saying that about someone else I'd want to shake them and I'd remind them of how awesome THEIR OWN lives are.  So I can do that with my friends but not for myself?

And that's one of the pain points about social media in my world.  Thus why every so often I disappear from that universe.  To regroup and reprioritize.

Have you been sucked in to the dark side of social media?  And if so, what have you done to get out of it?