Are you struggling with a lack of confidence in yourself or feel that you have low self-esteem as a woman? Do you ever experience negative thoughts about yourself after spending any amount of time scrolling social media? If so, your time on social media, while it may seem innocent enough, could actually be causing your low self-esteem.
Imagine for a minute that you are going about your day and feeling pretty good. No negative thoughts. No self-doubt. You find yourself with a few minutes to spare and so you hop on social media to buy some time and see what’s there. It sounds harmless enough.
Immediately you are bombarded with images and videos. The information and details of what others are doing, what their homes look like, how clean and “perfect” their children are, and many other images are now flooding your brain. You can see into their lives, their homes, and their day to day. It’s easy to keep scrolling past these images without much thought, but what happens when you see an image of someone’s life that reflects what you wish you had? Is it easy to scroll past without comparing your looks, likes, children, and job to others?
Self-comparison while using social media is extremely easy to do. The problem with this is that it often leaves us women feeling negative about ourselves. Self-comparisons can also:
- Create feeling of self-doubt
- Increase negative thoughts of self
- Create feelings of inadequacy
- Cause anxiety symptoms
- Cause feelings of depression
If you use social media, take some time to reflect on how you feel before, during, and after you spend any amount of time online. Do you feel the same? Better? Worse?
Social media can be a great tool to connect, find local opportunities, meet people, and so on. However, it can also trigger negative thoughts of self, feelings of inadequacy, and increase low self-esteem. If you are noticing that social media is not helping your self-confidence, consider doing the following:
- Limit time on social media apps like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and others
- Unfollow people or accounts that you find yourself comparing yourself in any way to
- Take a social media break altogether for a period of time to see how it feels and if your confidence naturally improves
- Practice engaging in confidence building activities
While self-comparisons are very common, they are hurting your self-esteem and creating a lack of confidence in yourself. If you are struggling with this and would like to learn more ways to improve your self-esteem, reduce negative self-talk, and feel more confidence in yourself, reach out to me to discuss how therapy may be helpful for you in reaching those goals.
