It’s common for you, your friends, and even some influencers, to show two completely different sides of themselves online. Is it fear of being judged that makes us feel we need to hide our true, unfiltered selves? Maybe it’s wanting to seem impressive online, only showing off the glamorous side of your life. 

For those on the other side of the situation, scrolling through instagram at home, seeing everyone posting about their trips and outings with their friends or significant others, it’s easy to feel jealous and insecure. There are toxic effects to portraying a false narrative on your instagram account.

“People don’t show their true selves on instagram because they are afraid of judgement from peers. People find it as a way to fit in and find relationships between friends,” says senior, Mia Winters. “I think people like showing glimpses of their private life on spam accounts and what they want people to view them as on instagram.”

Typically there are two types of accounts that teens have, a main (often public) account, and a spam (private) account. Main accounts usually are to show off their lives how they want anyone to view it. Spam accounts are for their close friends, typically to show off their unfiltered everyday self, and their less glamorous adventures.

Senior Yaamini Aga says that, “most people show the best versions of themselves on social media so people have a good opinion of them” and that “people usually have two accounts to show their true personality or a different side of them that they don’t want everyone to see.”

When doom scrolling at night or in a bad mood, comparing yourself to social media is an easy trap to fall into. Most fail to realize that everything on social media is filtered to get a certain reaction from their viewers. Almost all of the people you see have an everyday life that looks very different from their Instagram page.

Rarely do people want to cut off social media cold turkey, but even catching yourself in a pattern, or even unfollowing certain people who you only give you a negative response to their posts can do a lot. 

What makes this comparison so harmful is how constant yet subtle it is. Its hundreds of photos and hours of scrolling that are reinforcing the same unrealistic standards. People feel the need to perfectly craft themselves online out of insecurity and fear of judgement, and it makes you question their intentions on social media, is it just for attention?