Instagram's Slippery Slope

I joined Instagram at a time when it was so innocent. I remember begging my parents to let me have an account because I felt so isolated from everyone at school who had it. You weren't cool if you didn't have Instagram. Finally, I was allowed to have an account when I was 13 years old. It started out fun and simple. Friends would share pictures of themselves at the high school football game or when their family went to the beach. It didn't stay like that for long, though. I began to notice all the popular girls posting selfies (always with the saturation turned all the way up-why did we do that??) and they would get tons of likes and comments about how pretty they were. I began to wonder, "Does anyone think I'm pretty? How could I know, unless I did what they're doing?"

I began posting selfies anytime I thought I looked prettier than normal (because you can't just post a normal-looking picture of yourself). I would wait impatiently to see how many likes I could get. I would sit, constantly refreshing the page to see if I had gotten any comments about how I looked. "Beautiful!", "Gorgeous!!", "You're so cute!" Heart-eye emoji, heart-eye emoji, heart-eye emoji. Ahh, there it is. Sweet validation. Thank goodness, now I know I'm pretty too. Until I notice that one of the more popular girls has 20 more likes and 5 more comments than I do. "She must be prettier than me", I think. I take note of her smile, her pose, her clothes, her makeup, her filter. Now I see where I went wrong. If I want the attention she's getting, my pictures need to look more like hers. I start changing things about myself to appear prettier in my pictures. What I didn't realize, though, is that I was slowly beating down who I actually was because, more and more, I felt that who I was wasn't beautiful.

I began to lose sight of who I actually was and slowly morphed into a combination of all the pretty girls I saw on Instagram. I learned how to apply makeup, how to pose and what captions to use. It was all just a sad attempt to get attention and get the pretty girls to think I was pretty too. I was desperate to be a part of their group and was willing to lose myself completely just to do that. I was never satisfied, though. Someone would always get more likes than me or more people commenting on their beauty. Someone always had a better body than me, more friends than me, nicer clothes than me. I was running a race that I had no chance of winning and no good reason for entering in the first place.

Even at this stage, there was still a small sense of innocence. Girls compare themselves to each other. It's a struggle that a lot of girls deal with as they get older. Things began to change, though, as I went through high school. Enter: boys. Gross, foul-mouthed, disrespectful boys that I realized I desperately wanted the attention of. I tried to learn what they thought was attractive and show that in my posts. I was never "brave" enough to post anything inappropriate or sexual. I simply tried to add subtle hints of the "she's not like other girls" attitude. Spoiler alert: I was, in fact, like the other girls.

Once again, I found myself running a race I'd never win. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was miserable. I couldn't go a day without wearing makeup or dressing up for school. I was constantly competing with other girls to gain any sort of attention from anyone. I was always behind and I always would be. It took many years, but finally, one random day in 2021, I was talking with Hunter about all the reasons Instagram had been so damaging to me and how I wanted to delete it and he encouraged me to do so. Then, just as quickly as it had appeared into my life, it was gone. That action of deleting it was so simple, and yet it had such a huge impact on my life. I felt a weight off my shoulders.

I've been free from the choke-hold of Instagram for a couple years now and I truly believe I'm a happier person because of it. I don't constantly compare myself to other women. I'm not obsessed with getting attention from people who don't actually care about me. I take pictures of things to looks back on memorable times in my life, not to show to a bunch of people who, again, don't actually care about me. I'm validated in my identity as a Christian. Sure, I'll log in here and there to post something on my story that's really important to me, like these blog posts, but even then, I know I can't stay long because its a slippery slope and I have no interest in falling down it again.

God sees me and loves me. He created me. He doesn't look at me and begin picking apart my flaws, so why should I? I'll never be satisfied by trying to find my worth in likes and comments. The only way to find true satisfaction is in the Lord. There are a few verses I'd like to share on this topic that I hope can speak to you if you're struggling like I was.

• Romans 15:13- "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope."

• Psalm 16:11- "You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forever."

• John 4:13-14- "Jesus said to her, 'Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.'"

• John 10:10- "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly."

• Luke 12:15- "And he said to them, 'Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.'"

• Galatians 2:20- "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

• Psalm 139:14- "I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well."

I want to encourage anyone reading this to pray about this topic. Take a couple minutes to ask God to show you where you've been searching for satisfaction and your identity. Maybe you have no issue using Instagram and can use it without comparing yourself to others. If that's the case, great! It can definitely be a great tool for sharing things that are important to you. But if you're anything like me and find it a little too easy to worry about likes or comments or you find yourself taking pictures simply for the purpose of showing other people how great you look or how cool your lifestyle is, take a second to talk to God about your identity and ask Him to guide you in pursuing His will. I promise there is so much freedom just waiting for you. Talk to Him. Find peace and satisfaction in your spiritual identity, not your cultural one.