Social Media Envy

Right now it is summer semester at the college where I work.  So I am teaching an advanced level psychology class online  - abnormal psychology.  Many of my students are from other colleges and are taking this class to pick up some credits toward their academic goals. 

As a professor I am always looking for timely material that will help me make psychology relevant to my students who are mostly millennials.  I often tell them that I am a digital immigrant so for me staying connected through social media is not intuitive.

So recently I have been reading about something called social media envy.  This is a condition, that has been studied in several research articles, where those who are active on social media can develop depression based on their envy of their friends seemingly perfect lives on social media.

You know what that is like, the friends who post photos of their wonderful vacations, their beautiful and delicious meals and who have perfect, photogenic children.  As people are lurking on social media they see their friends lives which are much more fun, beautiful and more perfect than theirs.  This envy can lead to depression, "Wow, ____'s life is so much better than mine!  What is wrong with my life that it is not as wonderful as ______'s?"

Constant comparison of our lives to those of our social media "friends" who seem to have everything going for them leads those of us with just regular lives to experience envy and depression.  Believe me this is a real condition!

So what can we do?  It is important to know that those people with the perfect lives are probably just a hum drum as the rest of us.  They are just better at navigating social media!   Just as college entrance exams don't really test your knowledge but your test-taking ability.  Extensive use of social media to broadcast your perfect life is more a measure of your use of social media, and comfort with sharing your life with your friends than the perfection of your life. 

So the rest of us who don't share every little nuance of our lives are not less perfect, we just don't feel the need to constantly share, tweet, snap or whatever. 

What do you think?  Do you get envious and depressed watching the perfection of your social media friends?