How much is a picture worth?

Deleting the Instagram app from my phone was my proudest accomplishment this summer, easily topping the progress I made on my LSAT study plan. Needless to say, when I rid my phone of the soul-sucking medium for quasi-artsiness, I felt liberated from the burdens of feigned excitement, resentment at the comparable monotony of my own life, and the constant urge to encapsulate my experiences into a single filtered frame and pithy caption. It wasn’t until many weeks later, however, that I fully grasped the effects of my social media use. 

Friend and former classmate Elizabeth George recently provided me with me the vocabulary to communicate a reality that has daunted me for years in her Fall 2016 article, “For Duke women: higher education, lower-self esteem.” In her piece, Elizabeth connects findings in the 2002 Women’s Initiative Report, spearheaded by former Duke President Nan Keohane, with the current—and rather depressing—state of women’s issues on campus. Elizabeth extrapolates on what others have called the “X phenomenon,” a theory that argues for the respective decline and incline of women’s and men’s self-confidence as college progresses. 

Though my research didn’t reveal explicit mention of the “X phenomenon,” the concept isn’t much of a stretch considering the persistence of traditionally female-centric issues on campus: sexual assault, disorder eating, and the all too familiar notion of “effortless perfection.” While I’m sure progress has been made since the 2002 report, especially as awareness of sexual violence grows, in many ways our obsession with social media had led to a regression. It’s nearly impossible to avoid constant comparison because of our endless connectivity. The girl on the bus whose daily jewelry is worth more than your family’s car, the fellow treadmiller who seems to live at the gym, and the lab partner with a glowing tan from this year’s fifth vacation aren’t just acquaintances you run into on the quad. They’re prominent figures in your life, thanks to Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram. 

It could be argued that the solution to the social media blues is simple: just unfriend and unfollow anyone and everyone whose online presence puts your inferiority complex at an all-time high. Unfortunately, that would leave you with no one left to follow, save Mom, Dad, and Grandma Carol. The sad truth is that we all play the game of one upmanship, or at least some variation of exhibitionism. These practices are especially prevalent amongst women, who historically have  been taught to marry self-worth with body image. Offline, ambitious Duke women work hard to present the best versions of themselves. The intent behind online interactions is no different, yet it is infinitely easier in the virtual world to curate a more perfect version of the self. This version is conveyed primarily through images: skimpily clad bodies, breathtaking sunsets, and food that may or may not have been consumed. 

I might sound like the type of person who hasn’t learned how to be happy for her friends, and admittedly my own securities have occasionally prevented me from fully celebrating in others’ well-deserved successes. Nevertheless, I find it unsettling that we spend so much of our free time skimming through hundreds—if not thousands—of images and life updates from people with whom we’d never hold more than a five-minute conversation. 

Jean Twenge, professor of psychology at San Diego State University and author of Generation Me argues in the September 2017 issue of The Atlantic that iGen, a group she defines as those born between 1995 and 2012, is actually “on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades” thanks in large part to their incessant use of smart phones. Having sought multiple means of psychiatric help throughout my time at Duke, I’ll eagerly make social media a culprit in my own mental health struggles. Sure, these problems probably had always been lying dormant in my psyche, but I’m convinced that both my consumption and creation of online content within Duke’s high-achieving environment played a large role in bringing my underlying issues to the surface. 

To be completely honest, much of the impetus for deleting my Instagram account a few months ago had to do with a summer schedule that wasn’t exactly Instagram-worthy. But, now that I’ve just begun a year-long stint working in a foreign country, I’m tempted to welcome the familiar yet irritating old friend back into my life. 

Ironically, however, this temptation also gives me pause, and adds to the list of reasons I should probably continue my Instagram hiatus. If my return to Instagram would be solely for the purposes of showing off, then—in addition to being a hypocrite—wouldn’t I only be furthering the notion that mine and others’ lives are only worth as much as the beautiful pictures we have to show for them?