Do you ever feel self-conscious about yourself, your achievements or your lifestyle when you scroll through, say, Instagram?

The benefit of social media is that it helps us connect with others and share our experiences, but an undeniable negative of social sharing is that we essentially only ever see a highlight reel of people’s lives, which is generally not representative of their actual, everyday experience.

But without the full context, we don’t know, and it can feel like that perfect looking, perfect tanned, perfect toned person with the perfect skin actually just wakes up that way. Which is definitely not the truth. 

Through clever camera angles, image editing, filters and more, we’re comparing ourselves to unrealistic expectations. But what are the impacts of such – and more importantly, how is that impacting younger, more impressionable users? 

The below infographic from King University Online provides some additional food for thought on this – and while it doesn’t provide answers as to the effects, it’s worth noting the scope of exposure we have to such comparisons online.

Take a look at the full infographic below.