my relationship with social media :/

My relationship with social media is very... interesting. I have spent countless hours on my phone using several social media apps like Snapchat and Instagram. Using Snapchat was a way for me to communicate with my friends, even though I had iMessage. I used Instagram as a way for me to gain validation and the satisfying feeling of people commenting praises for pictures of myself and my friends. I got both forms of social media without the consent of my parents, which is probably horribly wrong, but I still did it anyway. I followed as many celebrities that I particularly liked and enjoyed. Boy, was I wrong for doing that. I got my Instagram in sixth grade and when I started my years in middle school, my self-esteemed dropped so low. I looked at social media stars like Kylie Jenner and Gigi Hadid and immediately changed my whole perspective on the world. I genuinely thought that the standards that these stars had was what social wanted. I ultimately became very self-conscious of myself and hated how I look. I developed an eating disorder that made me lose an absurd amount of weight. All because of how I wanted to look like these social media stars, but when I started my high school journey, I definitely had a reality check. 

Once Instagram died down for me, I turned to Snapchat obsessively and constantly used it. I got lost in sending snaps to my friends and to people that I didn't even had a real friendship with. It's kind of sad now that I think about it, but it was one of the main ways I communicated with my friends... and my 'not really' my friends. It became a habit for me to post on my Snapchat story only to impress my crushes at the time. In addition, sending streaks, which is a number that you get with someone for consecutively sending snaps to them everyday, became stressful for me and I couldn't handle my life being on a timer. If I lost a streak with someone, I'd stress out and couldn't function. If someone lost a streak with me, I'd get mad and irritated. At those moments, I totally began to realize that Snapchat was also unhealthy for me. 

I believe that social media has impacted me in such a negative way. I can't seem to find a way that Snapchat or Instagram has affected me in a relatively positive way. The companies that make these apps and websites really know what to do to grab the attention of us consumers. I am definitely addicted to it though. I'm trying to limit myself from using it, by cutting the time I use it and I think it's really helped me to focus on my school work. From here on out, I think that social media will never leave me. It's something that has become so easy to fall into.