At the moment I'm really struggling with social media. I'm thinking about deleting Facebook and Instagram as they seem to be the places I struggle most with (Twitter I can see some use for!)

The reason I struggle is because I never feel like I'm doing enough or being "enough." Everyone else seems to have amazing lives that they love showing off on Facebook and Instagram. They're always doing "great" stuff like eating at amazing restaurants, being super healthy, showing off their exercise habits etc. Only recently I've kinda realised about this idea of it being a "highlight reel" and people only showing what they want you to see. You don't see all the regular mundane stuff or any of the bad stuff.

I think people do this to show off and to try and make out like their lives are just as good as everyone else's on social media, and in turn other people are doing the same like a never ending spiral. It's social comparison at it's finest. It's like we don't do things for ourselves but to show off about it on social media. I find it exhausting trying to live up to what everyone else is doing.

An example from my friends list is a guy i know from university. He met a girl online who lives in another country to us. He updates his status and Instagram constantly saying how perfect she is, how perfect their relationship is, how much they love each other etc. He's having to apply for a visa to go and try and live with her and has proposed to her after quite a short period of time (I think to help the visa application). As well as his engagement and moving plans he also constantly updates his Instagram with selfies of his semi naked body due to wanting to show everyone how much weight he's losing, with captions about how great he feels at the moment. Everytime he updates his status I get this feeling of rage, why can't he just enjoy his life without sharing every single thing he does? It's obvious he thinks these things have no value unless he has an audience to approve of them. I find it so tiresome. I've noticed I feel so much worse if I've seen anything he's posted.

I don't know. I just get this big impression that social media is not "real" it's full of rubbish basically and is no way representative of real life.

I don't post anything about my life anymore. No photos, no statuses really. It's the only way I feel comfortable using Facebook now. I want to get rid of it but it has it's uses (like messenger and my choir group has a page on there) so I feel a bit trapped.

Haha sorry for the rant. At least we can be real here though.