How Social Media Has Been Hurting Women Instead of Helping Them I went on a trip to Folly Beach in South Carolina with my church youth group CRUSH in the summer of 2016. The sun was shining on my face while I could hear the water clamp up on the sand. I wanted to commemorate this moment with my good friend Rebecca, so I decided that we should take a picture to post on Instagram. After taking the photo, Rebecca smiled at it for a few moments and said, “Aww we look so cute. I love this picture” and decided to go have a dip in the ocean. I decided to check it and see if it was okay too. As I looked at it, I thought I would look like Rebecca with nice narrow legs, slim waist, and thin stomach. But I ended up having a plump belly, with wide legs,
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My sister bought a jumpsuit to wear to an event called the BEACON Awards and she was conflicted to wear it or not. So, she made a poll on her story where she would have her followers decide on if she should wear the jumpsuit or not, while I made a poll where I reenacted a pose Michael Jackson once did and posted to see if people thought I or Michael Jackson did it better. The posts lasted 24 hours, and through that whole experience, my sister and I kept checking our phones to see what people said. We were both worried that people didn’t like what we did and thought that it was stupid. The more time went by, the more anxious we got. We were afraid people weren’t going to like my sister’s jumpsuit and would think my pose was bad. It was gnawing at us all night. After the 24 hours, my sister’s results were 90 people saw it and 29 people voted. Out of 29, 24 said yes and 5 said no. For me 90 people saw it as well and only 33 responded. Out of 33, 24 said I did the pose better while 9 thought Michael Jackson did. Even though more people liked her jumpsuit and liked my pose, we still felt upset for the people who said the opposite. We ended up caring more about the people who disagreed instead of the people who agreed with us. Even though the post helped us get other people’s views, it only made us feel worse than …show more content…
It’s hard for our emotions and feelings to not react positively or negatively to what we post. Manoush Zomorodi author of Bored & Brilliant, explained a UCLA study by Lauren Sherman who wanted to see if Twitter or Instagram could affect the way our brains work. Lauren concluded that the number of likes and comments of their peers had affected their way of thinking and feeling (“Bored” 78-79). By using social media, the amount of likes and comments we get will affect what our mood would be later. When we see that a lot of people are liking our friends’ posts more than ours, we start to feel self-conscious and start worrying that there is something wrong with us and people don’t like us. But when we react this way, we could be experiencing symptoms of a mental disorder. Dana Duong who is the author of “Anxiety Disorders: Social Media Edition”, talked about Instagram and how it may be increasing the number of people to experience Social Anxiety Disorder. When we post pictures of ourselves on the platform, we begin to worry when we have no likes and start thinking that maybe no one likes it because we look awful and begin to feel unattractive (Duong). By using Instagram, it is causing us to be concerned about the numbers of likes and comments we have, instead of genuinely liking what we posted. Victoria, who is a 19-year-old college student that constantly uses Instagram, feels this same anxiety as well. “There is always
My sister bought a jumpsuit to wear to an event called the BEACON Awards and she was conflicted to wear it or not. So, she made a poll on her story where she would have her followers decide on if she should wear the jumpsuit or not, while I made a poll where I reenacted a pose Michael Jackson once did and posted to see if people thought I or Michael Jackson did it better. The posts lasted 24 hours, and through that whole experience, my sister and I kept checking our phones to see what people said. We were both worried that people didn’t like what we did and thought that it was stupid. The more time went by, the more anxious we got. We were afraid people weren’t going to like my sister’s jumpsuit and would think my pose was bad. It was gnawing at us all night. After the 24 hours, my sister’s results were 90 people saw it and 29 people voted. Out of 29, 24 said yes and 5 said no. For me 90 people saw it as well and only 33 responded. Out of 33, 24 said I did the pose better while 9 thought Michael Jackson did. Even though more people liked her jumpsuit and liked my pose, we still felt upset for the people who said the opposite. We ended up caring more about the people who disagreed instead of the people who agreed with us. Even though the post helped us get other people’s views, it only made us feel worse than …show more content…
It’s hard for our emotions and feelings to not react positively or negatively to what we post. Manoush Zomorodi author of Bored & Brilliant, explained a UCLA study by Lauren Sherman who wanted to see if Twitter or Instagram could affect the way our brains work. Lauren concluded that the number of likes and comments of their peers had affected their way of thinking and feeling (“Bored” 78-79). By using social media, the amount of likes and comments we get will affect what our mood would be later. When we see that a lot of people are liking our friends’ posts more than ours, we start to feel self-conscious and start worrying that there is something wrong with us and people don’t like us. But when we react this way, we could be experiencing symptoms of a mental disorder. Dana Duong who is the author of “Anxiety Disorders: Social Media Edition”, talked about Instagram and how it may be increasing the number of people to experience Social Anxiety Disorder. When we post pictures of ourselves on the platform, we begin to worry when we have no likes and start thinking that maybe no one likes it because we look awful and begin to feel unattractive (Duong). By using Instagram, it is causing us to be concerned about the numbers of likes and comments we have, instead of genuinely liking what we posted. Victoria, who is a 19-year-old college student that constantly uses Instagram, feels this same anxiety as well. “There is always