Unreachable expectations

Whether it’s how many likes you get on a picture or how many Snapchat streaks you have, our generation is obsessed with social media.

Being a millennial, my experiences in life have been based around Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. The moment I see my phone light up with a notification, my attention goes directly to that. I become distracted and focused on that one thing.

But for girls especially, choosing what to post is a hard process. You know that everything you post is going to be judged. You’ll spend hours on edits and ask all your friends for the perfect caption.

Social media has become a source of anxiety and stress in teenagers–especially in young girls. According to Common Sense Media, 35 percent of 13 to 17 year old girls get stressed about how they look when posting photos, compared to only 19 percent of boys.

Girls typically tend to follow along with the trends. If one person talks about one thing online it sparks interests in others, it could be a waterfall, scenery in Minneapolis or just a simple background once it is out there many will follow.

With the popularity of Snapchat, girls are constantly checking how many views they got on their stories and what their snapscore is. Stalking is becoming more common. Girls will see one thing some other girl posted and then become interested having them frequently checking up on it, sooner or later being obsessed with that one person.

Girls tend to be worried about how they will be perceived. It could be a picture in a swimsuit

making them worry about body image, a tweet displaying a bold opinion that could start a fight, or a Snapchat story that hundreds of your friends are going to view.

The social media makes it hard for girls to not be judged. With just a single screenshot, a post can be reposted and made permanent in a negative way. You can only hope that this doesn’t happen to you. So, many girls have resorted to alternative ways to seek they reasonable amount of privacy that they deserve.

A profile on any social media source displays a small portion of who you are and lets anyone have access to see it. On a private account, all other users can see is your name, bio, profile picture, and number of posts, whereas if you are public they can see every post, like and comment.

A newer social media phenomenon is “Finstas,” which is short for “fake Instagram.” “Finstas” are private Instagram accounts where teens tend to only let close friends follow, and they post content that they likely wouldn’t post on their main account. Finstas are a way for teens–girls in particular–to express themselves through media they don’t usually feel comfortable sharing with everyone.

The rise of finstas have caused controversies over posting private things and a follower who has access being able to get this information and spread it. With the double standards that exist for females in this digital age, it’s understandable why girls would seek ways such as finstas to escape judgement.

The next time you log onto your own social media account, know that even though social media can be taken in many different ways, there’s more to girls’ posts than meets the eye.