Social Standards Have Become Insuperable Due to Social Media Content

Every time you open the television, surf the internet or open a magazine, there will always be a flawless girl on an ad, or a perfectly built guy. These things start to feed on to our insecurities and we are swept easily by the idea of pursuing perfection.

Social media has the way society thinks and of course, people only tend to show the things they want other people to see. This is were editing comes in: to hide all the flaws and imperfections which leads to the deception point. People online think that such perfection exists and want it for themselves. Society is now demanding perfection from everyone and those who can’t keep up with society’s standards are criticized and judged. Unfortunately, parents aren’t excluded from this thought. What was once wanting the best for their children have become a demand for perfection since of course, they too as well believe that such goal is attainable. There is nothing wrong with having high standards, but the desire of being perfect is damaging.

The pressure of keeping up with society’s standards is mostly felt by teenagers. Teens are still at a stage wherein they want to feel like they belong therefore, they try to keep up with the trend and starts to develop a fear of missing out to please everyone by meeting the expectations of society because of the fear of being an outcast. Society is shaping the millennials and a study by researchers at the University of Western Ontario in 2017 suggests that the pressure of being perfect is a contributing factor to people prone to suicide ideas and attempts.

The personal goals set by each person are changing as well due to social media content. People are now always haunted by the idea of never being enough. The idea of perfection gets to them and sees imperfection as a bad thing and that one must do anything they can to be called flawless even if it means turning into someone they are not. Forcing ourselves to exercise, go on a diet, wax just to get that perfect look because little did we know that in the back of our mind, seeing a perfect brow automatically means a perfect life. Nowadays, being yourself is old news and is mostly about being the person the society wants.

We are human beings and we all have flaws. It’s the reason why the expression “I’m only human” exists. We should stop judging ourselves, remove our disguises and stop sacrificing our mental state to achieve the unattainable. Set some realistic goals based on our capabilities. Do something for the sake of self-satisfaction and not for our obsession with perfection. Stop comparing because most of the things we see online is just a product of the industry. The online world can be deceiving and we must not believe on everything we see.