Want To Be Happier? Stop Comparing Yourself To What You See On Social Media

The guy down the hall who got a promotion. The friend who always gets a table at the hottest restaurant in the city. The former roommate who takes the best vacations. Sure, you’re happy for them, but with people posting only the best parts of their lives on Facebook, it’s hard not to compare yourself to others.

Facebook and Twitter bring social comparison to a whole new level. “Social media is basically social comparison on steroids,” says Ramani Durvasula, a Los Angeles-based licensed clinical psychologist and psychology professor at California State University.

People showcase the most aspirational version of themselves on social media—new houses, expensive dinners, exotic vacations. It’s human nature to compare ourselves to others in order to learn how to behave and gauge societal expectations, but this becomes problematic when it feeds low self-esteem or causes anxiety, says Durvasula.

I think showcasing the best parts of our lives is what social media is for and seeing the highlights of other’s adventures often motivates me to go have my own.

In the same breath, I also know that it’s all too easy for me to get caught up in the bad parts. Posting something on Facebook and then getting a truckload of likes can be exhilarating — it’s instant confirmation that I’m “somebody.”

Being an “adult” I can take a step back but it’s the kids and how this shapes their lives that I worry about. M. is very impressionable when it comes to her peers.

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