Has Social Media Turned Us into Liars
The Truth About Fabrication on Social Profiles
We all do it. Lying is one of the most common traits the human race has ever developed. Lying transcends every language and exists on every continent on the planet. From garden-variety white lies to the more intricate and premeditated tall tales that are told, lies are on everyone's lips. Or should I say everyone's fingertips?
Social media is a popular internet destination for people looking to connect with others and share their lives one post at a time. We share almost everything, from the T.M.I moments and intimate details of our personal lives to posting what we had for breakfast this morning. Wikipedia has recently reported that Facebook alone has three billion active users worldwide, and they all love to talk about their latest and most extraordinary exploits.
But it’s not the popularity of social that we will be discussing today. Instead, we will explore what is being shared by the people who log onto these social sharing sites.
Everyone tends to exaggerate when describing the details of their life. Whether introducing themselves to a stranger for the first time or catching up with an old acquaintance, many people will lie to make themselves more appealing in one way or another.
A study published in July of 2023 by the University of Massachusetts states that a whopping 60% of people can’t go ten minutes without telling a lie.
The study also revealed that man are six times more likely to do it than women. Teens are in the age bracket most likely to bend the truth, (which I didn’t find surprising.) It is also thought that people tend to lie more when they are not face-to-face interacting with another person.
Social media has made this form of lying exponentially easier to pull off. Why? Because you can now safely edit and rework the truth until it is polished enough to post from the convenience your own computer screen. This has created a new trend in user’s, aptly coined Social Media Envy.
The comical part about being envious of someone else’s life because of how it is portrayed on Instagram is that we are likely jealous of something false. We are getting all worked up over nothing. However, we perpetuate the practice of lying to conceal our insecurities. It is all in an effort to essentially stay up with “The Jones’s”, if “The Jones’s” were all the people we knew from high school.
These delusions of grandeur posted on social have become quite common. Apparently, millennials do it the most. A recent study found that 23% of people born between 1981 and 1996 regularly lied on social media, as opposed to just 5% of Gen Z and Gen X. The study participants’ top reason for lying was (drum roll please…) to impress people!
Why are we becoming less secure about who we are underneath the guise of our overtly social profiles? Why do we need to beef up the facts to appeal to complete strangers?
This phenomenon has an explanation that fits the bill.
The Root Cause of Comparison
Whether we recognize it or not, we often compare our traits, assets, jobs, education level, and overall life success to others in order to size up the “competition” or in order to make ourselves feel better about the relatively boring lives we lead. This is known as the Social Comparison Theory, which was developed by social psychologist Leon Festinger back in 1954.
Dr. Festinger theorized that comparison to others is the human drive to gain an accurate self-view. The brain uses this method to measure the likelihood of success in many different aspects. For example, you will often compare your skills to an expert’s to determine how you measure up.
People will also use comparison to evaluate and determine where they stand in the grand social scheme according to their standards and the views they have about themselves.
So, if this doctor’s theory is correct, then it would explain why people are so willing to lie on social media. Whether we do it seem more attractive, socially conscious, charitable, desirable, affluent, relevant, educated, successful, influential (the list goes on and on) in society’s structure,because at the end of the day we are having trouble measuring our self-worth in a world full of Kardashian wannabes.
One thing is for sure, the entire ordeal can be a serious assault on one’s self-esteem and has had more severe consequences in some cases than we could have imagined, especially on younger, more impressionable users.
I believe Dr. Festinger was on to something here. Let’s think in terms of the theory’s principles, and use a rational thought process to work this one out.
What if instead of spending all the free time we have crafting a facade around our social activities, careers, etc., to give the impression that we are all leading our best lives, we instead go out and make it happen. That sounds like a sound solution to ponder while cruising Facebook and stumble across the fabulous life of Tanya What’s-Her-Face that sat in front of you in your 11th grade Math class.
So, the next time scrolling through your feed sparks a feeling of social media envy, and you start to make social comparisons, STOP! What you see is likely nothing but a good old-fashioned lie.
