If I told you that how we use social media is shifting our identity, could you honestly see it, and would you believe it?
14 years ago, I had a pretty good life as a social media influencer—I won some competitions, had a ton of sponsorships, media opportunities to fashion shows, parties, endless meals & was invited on media trips (aka sponsored) to a number of places, including New York.
Estelle meeting celebrities
Sounds like a dream life, right?
Let me go back a few years or 10 to be exact…
Accidentally finding love and acceptance on social media
I’m one of those barely-made-it-as-millennial types—too young to relate with the boomers, but too old to want to use TikTok.
My first taste of social media was when I was about 17. I struggled with my academics in Singapore & my parents sent me to school in Melbourne Australia.
I can’t say I flourished as a human being there yet but I did discover the unsupervised freedom of watching shows like The O.C. & Prison Break.
Moving to a new country, being around new people and adjusting to a lot of life change without much good support to process the transition at that point, could have added to the heady recipe of making life a lonely experience for me.
I struggled to find real, good friends and I also found that some of my schoolmates weren’t very nice to me. They would do things like cover their faces, point and laugh at me when I walked past their table or a common area.
Was it my outfit? Was it my personality? Was it who I am?
I wasn’t aware of the deep rejection, hurt or shame I experienced back then but they were all the roads that lead to brokenness and loneliness.
So imagine my surprise when I started to use social media networks. I started on MySpace, Friendster (my generation’s O.G. social networks!) and the American exchange students in my Uni opened my world to Facebook. I uploaded a few cute pictures of myself and somehow, I got lots of likes and positive comments.
Strangely and suddenly, people now think I’m cool and popular. I even won a year-end “prom queen” kind of title in the school I was in! What?!
When you’re lonely and vulnerable, any kind of validation matters. The amazing approval and results I was getting from social media were so incongruent from my experience of school, and my inner reality that was full of pain, shame, self-hatred and loneliness.
When you’re lonely and vulnerable, any kind of validation matters.
My world quickly became a social media-first world.Could you blame me? It was a shinier reality. One where I was liked and not hated, no more lonely, no more insignificant and invisible like I had always felt.
Life seemed better on social media. Social media made my life better than it was in real life.
Estelle partying with friends
I started blogging about my now-increasingly vibrant life, my attractive friends, all the amazing parties and beautiful events I had a chance to go to, and more. It didn’t seem very hard to get attention online, and I was quite frankly, loving it and loving my life.
Our social media dilemma: Existential loneliness?
Is online life real life? After living this way for a number of years, this existential gap seemed to only grow bigger and bigger for me. My online life seemed joyous, glamorous, perfect and envious to many, with the number of followers and online recognition steadily climbing but on the inside, I was secretly living a different reality.
Estelle appearing on media and meeting radio celebrities
My life was constantly in inner turmoil - with messy relationships, angry tantrums towards my loved ones, and daily thoughts and emotions swinging violently to extreme highs and lows. Once, I had an argument with a then-boyfriend and was so triggered that I almost jumped out of the moving car.
Fame and success is no cure for a broken heart and broken life, and little did I know I was reliving my childhood pains once again. Underneath the amazing pictures on social media, my deeper life was a mess and I knew I had to do something about it.
I broke up with my then-boyfriend, quit my job and left the social media influencer life behind completely, seeking answers.
I half-heartedly started to pull away the veil and look at my real life underneath it. It was a slow journey of questioning who I am and a search for meaning and purpose began.
Instagram vs Reality
Looking back on who I was and how I was living my life (especially my online life) more than 10 years ago, I have had many reflections, personal insights and new perspectives.
We don’t know how mentally affected we are by social media until we are depressed, anxious, numb, or feeling so lousy about ourselves. Sometimes we don’t even know how to describe what it is we feel.
Social media also affects our relational capacities such as how we relate to our friends, family and the world around us.
We don’t often put enough separation between our online lives and real lives and it might lead to delusion and disillusionment if we consider our online and physical lives one and the same.
We don’t often put enough separation between our online lives and real lives and it might lead to delusion and disillusionment if we consider our online and physical lives one and the same.
The Social Media Dilemma documentary (available on Netflix) interviews many key developers from Facebook, Instagram, Google & big tech who go into a fascinating, detailed expose and explain that many of these applications were created intentionally to be addictive.
They realised how big a monster they created when the very ones who developed these apps realised they themselves were addicted to it, and it was severely affecting their lives and relationships with loved ones.
According to a scientific study by the Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, researchers found that students who used the Internet and social media uncontrollably or unreasonably, were around two-and-a-half times as likely as normal users to develop depression.
This result suggests that young people who are initially free of mental health problems, but use the Internet excessively, could develop depression as a consequence.
Another psychology-based study has shown that depression, anxiety, and sleep quality is closely associated with smartphone overuse.
Depression, anxiety, and sleep quality is closely associated with smartphone overuse.
So why do we still do it? Why do we scroll late at night and then feel totally icky the next day, only to repeat this same terrible habit every day?
Sometimes, we compare our lives with others instead of living our own?
Why do we feel good or lousy about ourselves depending on whether the algorithm showed your Insta stories or posts to more or less people?
Sometimes, we build our self-worth on our shaky online worlds, which may be here today and gone tomorrow.
How do we build real lives that will truly matter?
I think we scroll not just because we’re bored but because we don’t know what to do with ourselves.
Our phones have become not just a companion but a slavemaster, our ball and chain to deliver us from boredom, a gadget we grasp unceasingly for hope and comfort but finding that it always leaves us even emptier than before.
We scroll because we feel alone and we’re uncomfortable with being alone when we don’t know who we are.
We use social media to alleviate our loneliness but the biggest irony is that its making us more disconnected, and more lonely than ever.
So, how do we heal our loneliness? It’s not by infinitely scrolling on our phone or social media, for sure.
I found that loneliness isn’t something to be shameful about but an important human need that invites us on a journey towards something bigger than ourselves.
We use social media to alleviate our loneliness but the biggest irony is that it’s making us more disconnected, and more lonely than ever.
Getting in touch with my loneliness ultimately led me to discover my deepest longings, giving me an honest look at what I believe about myself and the world around me, and connecting me to my ultimate need for belonging.
Estelle speaking at a community gathering she organised for creatives in 2018.
Loneliness is an invitation to connection.
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So, now that we’ve established our desire and need for true connection, how do we connect with ourselves and others in more meaningful ways, without throwing away our phone?
How do we live a new life in new ways where we’re in control of our phone, where we own our time and our phone—rather than having it own and control us?
Read our next article for practical tips on how to do so.
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Reference: https://nationalpost.com/health/teen-internet-addicts-more-likely-to-get-depressed-study
Estelle is a content creator, coach, thought leader and passionate advocate in the area of Identity, Purpose & Emotional Well-Being.
She was a pioneer social media influencer more than a decade ago and now creates content, workshops and other interactive experiences that invite youth, creatives, entrepreneurs, culture-changers and misfits to think more deeply about themselves and live out their authentic purpose.
She is a featured author in the Singapore-based book, “Rise Up: 31 Short Inspiring Stories – it’s time to own your story” as well as guest writer/contributor across several media channels.
Connect with Estelle on IG @estellekiora for more content, conversations & coaching on purposeful living.
Check out her podcast show, The Purposepreneur on Apple, Spotify or YouTube for conversations on Purpose, Creativity & Entrepreneurship.
