#NOTrealLIFE

Did you know that social media addiction can be stronger than addiction to cigarettes and alcohol?

Researchers at Chicago University concluded that after following an experiment in which they recorded the cravings of several hundred people for several weeks. Media cravings ranked ahead of cravings for cigarettes and alcohol. Anxiety, depression and psychological disorders are often symptoms of who spend too much time online.

Maybe I am part of it too somehow, but every single day I see myself surrounded by people who are struggling to find approval on platflorms where a tons of other people are obsessed with the same bullshit. And I hate it.

I think it all got a little too far, and especially the new generation is becoming incredibly needy of attention. Craving for likes and more and more followers. It's a continuos competition to have more online visibility, more friends and more useless content.

Everything what we say and what we do seems like it needs to be displayed online, where everybody can see it. We are constantly pushed to create a perfect image of ourselves, where our lifes looks perfect and constantly exciting. But what's the reality behind it?

We are probably just more and more lonely; we are left to ourselves and our devices.

Living on social media is compromising our real life. And we are probably missing out on so many real things to keep on with the world that we are constructing online.

I feel like so many people go to places and do things just to take pictures of it, not to really live the moment and the experience. To capture the perfect selfie for their next post.

For millions of teens (and not only) selfies are the nowadays currency; sending out Snapchats stories and posting everything they do on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. The repercussions are getting often more and more concerning. Surrounded by Instagram famous people they look at every minute, it's not surprising they try to imitate it. That's nowadays bigger aspiration; to be online famous.

They are called web influencer for a reason. But do we ask ourselves what are they influencing us with? Perfect bodies, and lifestyles over normality. The problem is not just what we share, and how we share it. But it's also in what we look at, all the time. It's just the image of them that they wanna sell us. None of it is their true self. It's the "internet-self", that it's a lot different.

All this web stars right now, they are just selling themselves and products we don't need all the time. And that we feel the urge to have just to be like them. Our society is pure consumerism. We have to open our eyes, this is not true life; just an act played on social media. And this is not what we should want to reach for in our lifes. We need to stop looking at other people's selfies and start looking for new experiences and human interaction.

To keep on looking to reach that perfection is just making us loose self-confidence. Millions of people constantly capturing themselves like it's told they should.

And with the internet, we all have the potential to be more narcissistic; spending hours in front of our cameras just to get the right post-able pose.

One example that I've found interesting comes from an Australian teenager with more than half a million followers on instagram that has quit the platform, describing it as “contrived perfection made to get attention”, and called for others to quit social media.

Essena O’Neill, 18, said she was able to make an income from marketing products on her Instagram.

She suddenly deleted more than 2,000 pictures “that served no real purpose other than self-promotion”, and dramatically edited the captions to the remaining posts in to reveal the manipulation and even insecurity behind them. A photo of her wearing a bikini has been edited: “see how relatable my captions were – stomach sucked in, strategic pose, pushed up boobs. I just want younger girls to know this isn’t candid life, or cool or inspirational. It’s contrived perfection made to get attention.”

So many people strive to be ‘popular’ online to validate themselves, manipulating photos and captions to give the idea they are happy just to get ‘followers’ When none of that truly matters.

So how many things of your real life are you missing out while looking at your phone?

Why is the new generation so needy of attenction and approval?

Is having many followers worth it, when you are spending all the time at home refreshing your feed?

Is this nowadays life? Proving yourself online?

I find it sad.