Perfectionism is Clouding our Perspectives

By Key Kessens
FWIS Contributing Writer

Technology has become a significant factor in Gen Z’s life. To be more specific, social media has taken a hold on teenagers. Checking Instagram and Snapchat is more of a daily ritual than adults checking their emails in the morning. I endlessly scrolled on social media for a year and developed a perfectionist mindset more than ever before. Constant comparison started to take a hold on my perception because I stopped taking care of myself and became addicted to interacting with my peers online. I felt lonely watching others hang out together and I only had online connections. To fill a lonely and depressed void, I resorted to a counterproductive cycle of comparing myself to people on social media and fueling the perfectionist mindset that I didn’t do enough “like everyone else”. The trap I fell into lacked self-love and fulfilled immaturity, instability, and insecurity. I glued myself to uncomfortable situations for so long because the consistent doom scrolling started a domino effect into all the aspects of my life. Self-care no longer existed in my world because it became all about everyone else and coming off as “perfect” like everyone expects of me. I strived to be perfect no matter how drained or empty I felt because I conditioned my mind to prepare for burnout. I created chaos in every category of my life and I ditched the abundance that I had set myself up for. No matter what I tried it never seemed to work because I lacked the most important key to success - a motivated mindset. I call this mindset the “Creator mindset” because of my Student Success course. I learned my life will reflect what my mindset manifests and a perfectionist mindset is more counterproductive than I imagined.

My English Composition course helped teach me that my unproductive lifestyle is rooted in excessive social media use through reading. I knew I had an issue, but I didn’t understand how I became so unproductive. In high school I balanced being cheer captain, doing school work, working at Starbucks, and a social life, but ever since I graduated I haven’t had the same spark. An honor student of Northern Virginia Community College, Justin Vihn, suggests that the effects of social media addiction are more influential than the positive contributions in his academic essay “Social Media: The Screen, the Brain, and Human Nature". Vihn argues that the teenagers increasing their usage on social media is linked to loneliness and depression. He identifies that most teens wake up ready to check social media because we are becoming more reliant on online social platforms. When we begin to doom scroll is where the detrimental effects to our mental health outweigh the connection benefits. Social media allows us to gear our lives as perfect. The battle to not be judged by our peers forces us to only post the “happy” moments of our lives and ignore the problems we face. Thus, the perfectionist approach to social media is born. Teenagers begin to believe that people’s lives are actually perfect on the outside looking in because we “save face” by projecting flawless lifestyles. Someone who is struggling in real life may feel alone because they don’t see anyone “surviving in misery” like them because we curate our profiles to look visually appealing and problem free. The comparison game then begins because we start to compare our unhappiness to our peer’s perceived blissful joy. The assumption that everyone else is happy while we are the opposite can be a leading cause of loneliness and depression in relation to social media. Perfectionism is unhealthy because it’s an unrealistic approach to life. Everyone goes through rough times. The cycle of doom scrolling and comparison becomes routine, so the more time on social media means the less time enjoying real life. Our only form of connection being from a screen fuels that toxic perfectionism cycle and breeds more lonely and depressive emotions. The communication efforts on social media can’t fully replace real life relationships. Also, only knowing these people online could feed into more loneliness because we don’t know our internet friends in real life. The combination of online ties and lack of connection with the real world increases the risk of a social media addiction. Then of course limited social media use would be less detrimental than an excessive attachment. Not all teens are addicted to social media, but many are on the verge of it or already sucked into the trap. The “instant gratification” social media provides to refresh to see new parts of our peers’ lives reinforces our unhealthy attachments to online social platforms. We can also search for anything we want to see and it comes up almost instantaneously. Teens return to their doom scrolling because of the instant gratification, no matter how lonely we feel. Vihn acknowledges that there are still positive benefits from social media because of the easy communication, but there are other ways to develop connections besides the small interactions that take place on social media. He also admits to shy people being able to find friends easily on social media too, but then again we only see how people choose to present themselves so they may not be real ties. The more we use social media, the worse we feel - which is the basis to why Vinh argues that social media is more harmful than helpful. The only way to free ourselves from the negative effects is being in control of our social media use. I agree with Vihn that a social media addiction is detrimental to teen mental health, but at the same time, I also disagree that social media is more toxic than helpful. Once my excessive doom scrolling began after graduation, my mental health plumented in the wrong direction because of the concepts of instant gratification, perfectionism, and comparison that Vihn pointed out. I fell into a toxic cycle of being unproductive because of that combination. Once I remembered the time that I didn’t have a social media addiction and used it for my career, I found the balance I needed, which is why I disagree with the idea that online platforms are more harmful than helpful like Vihn suggests. I found that low motivation is deeply rooted in perfectionism and healthy productivity can be restored with a Creator mindset.

I see my peers posting quotes all the time that we are too sucked into social media and have lost touch with reality. Most people fake an image online because it’s easier to make situations different than they actually are. A perfectionist mindset is so toxic because it breeds immaturity. Vihn asserts that, “the anonymity that social media provides for users allows them to create their online personalities…”. Teens can be someone they are not strictly on social media because we don’t have to post the behind the scenes of our lives. For example, I have Snapchat, Pinterest, and multiple Instagram accounts. That totals to five interdependent internet personalities. I have a hard time balancing my social media presence (because it’s a part of my career) with real life. Once I start to lose grip from reality and let myself start comparing my content to other content creators, I begin to feel myself slide back into sorrow and take on a perfectionist mindset by posting out of emotion. I genuinely struggle to regulate my emotions because social media has become my only form of communication, so I rely on Instagram to be heard instead of talking to people in real life about my issues. Since everyone projects themselves as flawless on Instagram, I feel alone in my struggles and don’t want to reach out to anyone in fear that they will judge me for not being perfect. The loneliness starts to become depressive because I disconnect more and more from reality very slowly. The doom scrolling trap creeps in so effortlessly and sweeps me off my feet every time. I lose control of my actions and ultimately my ability to control my emotions because I tell myself that I “can’t even stop myself from being on Instagram.” When in reality I’m nurturing the domino effect of being unproductive to bleed into all parts of my life.

Once social media becomes our outlet to be “perfect” we can become discouraged to get back into our real lives because of the need to save face. The habit of approaching social media by doom scrolling and perceiving everything as unblemished erases the benefits. Perfectionist mindsets reinforce toxic emotions like depression and loneliness because of the unrealistic approach. Vihn proposes the idea that social media is more abundantly negative than positive because of “[including] how it contributes to depression and loneliness because of our tendencies toward comparisons to others and its addictive nature.” Instant gratification makes social media so addictive for teens and it’s human nature to compare ourselves to one another, but the attachment to social media takes the comparison to another level. Excessive social media use among teens can fuel an unproductive cycle that we can get too comfortable with. The constant amount of information from our feed gives us easy access to compare our lives to other peoples. My experience caused me to lose trust with myself because I would resort to hours of scrolling through Instagram reels or TikTok instead of taking care of myself. I would want to break out of my depression and loneliness but couldn’t seem to unglue myself from the instant gratification of chatting with my peers and watching funny videos online. I did need to get back into the real world and show up for myself instead of for my internet personalities all the time. The instability of being inconsistent with Keyara and consistent with my Instagram handle, also caused me to become insecure in myself. Not only did I feel lonely and depressed, but I lacked confidence because all of my time and energy went into my different social media personalities. I compared myself to my old pictures and other people’s photos and concluded that I didn’t look pretty anymore. When in reality, I stopped prioritizing self-care as much as I used to. My attachment to social media became so severe that I would look to Pinterest, Snapchat, and Instagram to help me figure out why I struggled with productivity. Vihn explained my phenomenon with, “in seeking encouragement, they find stress and addiction instead”. The lack of real and meaningful connections reinforces the loneliness, depression, immaturity, insecurity, and instability associated with a social media addiction. Trying to keep up with personal hobbies like self-care starts to feel like a dreadful task because we tell ourselves getting off social media is impossible. We lose control of ourselves with the perfectionist mindset because we are convinced that we have no power over how we choose to spend our time. The domino effect comes into play when perfectionism starts to suck the confidence and productivity out of us, which could be a leading cause of loneliness and depression in teens who are addicted to social media.

There is hope to end social media addictions though! We must change our mindsets from a perfectionist (who engages in comparison traps and counterproductive hobbies) to a Creator mindset. With a mindset switch, our approach to how much time we spend on social media and what we do outside of it shifts because our focus is on ourselves rather than the external validation and projected perfection online. According to Professor Jennifer Harrell at Ivy Tech Community College, the first step to a Creator mindset is accepting personal responsibility. It is 100% my choice to consistently neglect myself to receive instant gratification online. I separate myself from my actions by taking responsibility and ultimately get my power back because it’s no longer “out of my control.” Next, I can redirect my focus to something more productive like self-care that will motivate me to get through the hard things I have to do throughout the day. For instance, if I am spending time to make myself feel better with my appearance, then it will be less dreadful to balance a busy work schedule with online assignments because I’m spending my spare time wisely. The new hobby (self-care) can replace the counterproductive habit (doom scrolling) and free us from social media addictions. We can get back to our real lives outside of the internet with a new Creator mindset. If you are anything like me, then I would rather practice self-love over a plethora of toxic habits that started with a social media addiction. The only things that manifest from excessive social media use is immaturity, instability, and insecurity. We can attract an abundance of love when we consistently practice embracing new hobbies with a Creator mindset.