Facebook is always being convicted to have a negative effect on people but there’s something else leaping over Facebook too, Instagram. Yes, Instagram effects people even more than Facebook because Facebook at least provide people a little more stuff like articles, games, posts, etc. to dive in whereas Instagram is all about pictures that too edited.
People see a particular product in many pictures and start thinking that they should have it too or they see some things their friends have and try to get the hold of it even if they don’t need it…experts call it lifestyle envy or Instagram envy.
By seeing someone else’s lifestyle we keep assessing ourselves and start thinking like, what they have and we don’t, why we don’t have that thing too and if we have it then why they have a better one, and many more. This harmful self-evaluation leads us to believe that we have a miserable life.
And the harsh reality is that we only see the part Instagram shows us, its half-truth and optimization of life. Everyone wants to look like a celebrity, which makes them too conscious offline too.
We see our friend’s pictures and try to upload a better one, and then they see our pictures and try to upload a better one and this goes on which promotes jealousy, social comparison and feelings of inferiority. And for the sake of uploading great pictures every time we start going to places that looks picture perfect.
It also contributes in wasting our time, like we’ll click thousand pictures and then select the best one to upload. Instagram even makes real world look boring.
In conclusion, I think that everything have its good and bad sides, like in this case, we can always look back in past with the help of Instagram it preserves our best moments but on the other hand, the more you look into it, the more you’ll feel isolated, miserable and depressed.
