The power of pressing pause and exercising self-awareness on social media
Filters aren't just for your photos...
If you are active on social media in any kind of public way, you might relate to this very specific experience. It occurs in the few minutes right before you press ‘post’, when you quickly scan the caption you’ve written, look at the photos or watch the reel you’ve edited together, putting it through a kind of internal filter to check that all is well and you haven’t accidentally revealed too much about yourself or someone else without their permission. There’s nothing worse than the icky feeling that comes from posting something you shouldn’t have, for myriad reasons.
For me, this process has become a moment of reflection, a chance to reevaluate and ask myself some hard questions about what my intention is and who the post is for. How will it be received? Is it helpful? Is it joyful? Is it designed to shock, excite, persuade, implore, and does it achieve the goal honestly and with good intention?
I am a big advocate for self-awareness and self-monitoring on social media, and my partner James has played a significant role in changing my way of thinking. We have vastly different relationships with social media: he is barely on Instagram, let alone Facebook or X, whereas I use social media every day for my clients and to document my personal and professional life.
It’s well noted that our ever-evolving use of social media throws up all kinds of new issues that we haven’t encountered before, from the impact of cancel culture and the social media binary, to the crushing feeling of comparison and inferiority when you’re bombarded with painstakingly curated content of the perfect house, the perfect wardrobe, the perfect opinion. Social media often tries to convince us, with a thinly-veiled judgemental gaze, that there’s no point in having the house or the wardrobe or the opinion if it’s not the right one.
I have gone from not really thinking twice before hitting ‘publish,’ to developing a much higher awareness of the impact even the most well-intentioned post can have. The other day, I was about to post a carousel of photos of my lovely wholesome lunch, a picturesque walk I went on before work, and a sourdough loaf that James and I were given by a friend. The caption looked something like this:
“Wait, what? Eating a proper wholesome lunch and getting outside and going for walks actually works? Weird, tbh.”
I saved the draft and came back to it later, at which point, the questions started popping into my head. What if my lovely wholesome lunch makes someone else feel like they failed in some way? Is this actually helpful or interesting to anyone, or is it just a humble brag? Who am I posting this for?
I deleted it, in the end. I was just looking for something, anything to post that was aesthetically pleasing, rather than actually having something to say, a point to make or a moment to share. It was a humble brag, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with a humble brag, but I didn’t like how that felt or what it said about me. On another day, if there was a different context or a different intent, I might have posted it; but in that specific moment, it didn’t feel right.
That’s not to say that I think everything we post on social media should be meaningful in some way: many of my friends have private accounts that they use simply to keep in touch with family and friends or to share photos of their children with those closest to them, and I don’t see anything wrong with posting a photo simply because you like it. That’s how Instagram started, right? But for someone who has a public account with an audience that exists outside of my core friendship group, I feel a need to filter, edit and curate what I share.
I have been ‘online’ in some form since I was 11 or 12, which means I’ve essentially had an online presence for 18 years - that’s more than half my entire life. It started with MSN and Bebo; then we graduated to the more sophisticated Facebook, and eventually, Instagram and Twitter (now called X). Ours was the generation that experienced our early childhood sans mobile phones, apps and the internet, with the early incarnations of social media becoming popular and mainstream in our teenage years. When we were kicked off the dial-up internet so our parents could use the phone, we just went round to each other’s houses instead. We were half in and half out, the novelty of being able to communicate instantly without having to top up your phone credit still making us giddy.
All of this is to say that over the years, I’ve learned that taking a moment to reflect on what you’re posting and why you’re posting it is probably a very good thing, and possibly the key to a healthier relationship with the online world.
There’s always going to be a contrived element to social media, a curation of some kind, because ultimately we are all posting our glossy life highlights and mostly leaving the sh*t-hit-the-fan moments out of the frame. BUT, and it’s a big but, there is also an abundance of joy, community, raw honesty, vulnerability and meaningful connection to be found on social media, and that’s why I love it.
I have met treasured friends online, found freelance work when I was about to completely lose hope, felt deeply connected to and seen by people I had never even met. Instagram has been a lifeline for me in the darkest hours and the source of some of the greatest joys; not the app itself, but the comfort, hope and opportunity that I have gleaned from the people who have a presence there.
As long as we’re posting from a place of self-awareness, kindness and generosity of spirit, as long as we’re not being insensitive d*cks about it…well, I think we’ll be OK.
What are your thoughts on this topic? Do you pause and reflect before you post, or do you just go for it? Have you ever regretted a social media post? Let’s chat in the comments!
Thanks as ever for reading :) x