Addicted to Social Media Approval

I think I'm losing my identity because of my addiction to social media approval.

What is this obsession, verging on addiction, I have of “likes” and “comments”?  

I love to share my thoughts, experiences, pictures, beliefs but have I become so diseased that unless the number on the bottom of the box is big I begin to think that what I’ve shared is not as valuable?

Is this one of the reasons why people leave Facebook?

Should I leave Facebook, Instagram and the Blogosphere?

The addiction began with the first like.  Then I accepted more followers and expected more likes.  To my delight, they came.  Now, if I have over 20 likes, I know it was a good picture.

But, wait… that makes no sense.

It’s only a good picture when others like it?

There was a time I took pictures on Instagram only for myself, I had no followers.  I didn't even know I could have followers! Haha, I must have not looked that deeply into the name :).

I guess I just need to choose whether the pictures/status updates/blog entries I create are for me or my followers and then accept the plenty or more common lack of "likes" and comments if that's their purpose.  But, it has been difficult for me lately to distinguish between something done for me or for others because I personally get so much when others like and respond to what I've written or captured!

There’s a physical rush I feel when I see people have “liked” my status or my photo or commented on my blog.  That rush spills over to my mind and I feel almost invincible.  I start to think that all of my ideas are amazing and I am really an important person.  It is a literal high.  These highs become addictive.

 Do I need that approval, that high, to feel good about who I am?

Has it come to that?!  To place my worth in the hands of my Facebook friends and Instagram/Blog followers?

But who can blame me?  I should have seen it coming.

One of my long-time blogger crushes, Taza, has 150,000 followers on Instagram and receives an average of 8,000 "likes" on her pictures. Can you believe that? I guess I can, considering the popularity of her blog, the perfection of her and her children’s wardrobe, the wonder of her photography, the seemingly picture-perfect marriage she depicts and the attention she has consequently received in many other forms of media.

Is she my measure of success?  I think subliminally it has come to that.   I read her blog every day for a few minutes and feel better when I do.  Why?  Personally I think it’s because I have successfully escaped my world and all the imperfections I am I all too familiar with and entered someone else’s perfect world.  We have enough in common that I feel I’ve almost adopted her life sometimes.  She’s a dancer, she loves music, she loves her children, she’s Mormon, and she loves food. So… we’re pretty much the same person, right?

No, that’s not right.

Maybe that’s it.  Maybe following blogs and worrying about social media approval has aided in the slow and sad process of me losing my identity.

What did I gauge my success against before? 

Ideally my success as a human being is measured only against my potential and myself. 

I think that when I let my mind and time be caught up in the lives of others I naturally compare my own to theirs.

Maybe it is a time for a social media break.

Why does that scare me?

Because I know how badly I’ll miss the approval I glean from both outlets.

If I were my own best friend I would tell myself this:

Minta, I love you.  You are so beautiful.  You shine.  When you know who you are and cling to that, you bring so much light and love to everyone you meet.  Your greatest potential will be reached when you let go of outside approval and jump with both feet into a life of faith in the Creator and service to His children.  You know that you’ve been happiest when you live your life like that. 

Remember those 18 months you spent on a mission.  You had never heard of Facebook or Instagram, you didn’t text, you didn’t check your email but once a week.  You didn’t even talk to the ones you loved most very often.  What you did was make plans to help people in your area know their own potential and worked all day to follow those plans.  You loved everyone around you and you didn’t easily take offense.  You wiped away tears of frustration and weariness in order to help families understand that they could be together forever.

No, your life can never be like that again.  That time was an incredible privilege of yours.  Emails, texts, calls are now a necessary part of the interacting and planning in your daily life.  You now get to talk to your family whenever you want.  And, although you are no longer required to plan every 30-minute increment of your 15-hour day, you have responsibilities that are just as important and require just as much dedication and sometimes planning.

You’re a mother.  That is the most important accomplishment you could hope for.  Not just to have a child, but to then live well in order to be a good example.  Your time is well spent when it’s spent helping your child learn and develop.  Every time you sing the ABC’s to, dance with, or teach your child how to work you’re making another divot in the mold that will become that child’s being.  You and your husband are responsible for instilling confidence, love, forgiveness, obedience, faithfulness, gratitude in your child’s self.  But don’t worry, like I said before, it’s in the small things that you already do every day that will help you achieve this! You’re on your way to becoming the mother you’ve dreamed of being. 

So, don’t worry what other people think.  There will come a day that your own daughter, whom you’ve given so many days to love and rear, will reject you and go against what you’ve taught.  Even then, your worth will not change.

Even then you’re an eternally worthwhile soul that has come to this earth with a purpose and done all you can to fulfill it.  You can be happy to know that the only acceptance and approval that will matter in the end is yours.  You will be your final judge.  Please remember that.

Can I do this?  Could I stop social media for a week? A month?  Would it be good for me?  What do you think?