“The reason we struggle with insecurity is that we compare our ‘behind the scenes’ with everyone else’s highlight reel.”- Steve Furtick

People spend an average of 1.72 hours a day on social networking sites. That’s a huge chunk of each day devoted to social media. If you’re the average social media user, you visit various channels to catch up on the news, interact with friends, and let the world know what is going on in your life. While that sounds like fun, social media doesn’t only create positive experiences. In fact, your self-esteem can take a nosedive each time you log into a social media network.

We try to look all put-together and perfectly fine online when in reality we are far from perfect and as put-together as an unfinished puzzle. Some people act like two completely different people in person and online on social media. In some cases, people like to come off as bullies or tough on social media but in person, they are shy and quiet. We hide behind computer screens and cell phones so nobody knows what goes on in our real lives. We don't have to post the bad things that happen, all we have to do is post the good things and everyone thinks we are all doing great.

The problem is that we are imperfect people who don't know how to act because we try to pull off this persona that people want or expect. This has vast consequences. Researchers from Humboldt University and Darmstadt’s Technical University conducted two studies on Facebook. The results from the studies were clear. Social media leads to feelings of loneliness, misery, and envy. Those three things are terrible for your self-esteem.

Girls feel even more insecure about their presence on social media. They are constantly making sure that they look thin and fit in a picture, that their make-up is on point and they aren’t showing too much skin. The comments are usually harsh and judgmental on a girl’s profile page. This has adverse effects on their personal lives as well as their mental health. If suppose someone spots them in real life they need to show people they are exactly the same as they are on social media. The most common fear is being called out by saying, “She doesn’t look anything like her Instagram photos.”

Rachel Simmons wrote on Time about the ways girls are leveraging Instagram to much more than share photos. They want to know what friends really think of them, use social media to measure how much a friend likes them, as a public barometer of popularity, to show BFF PDA, to express their anger and as a way to retaliate, as a personal branding machine and as a place for elaborate birthday collages. But the reality is much harsher.

Essena O’Neill, an Australian teenager with more than half a million followers on Instagram, made headlines after announcing that she was quitting the platform because it is “contrived perfection made to get attention”. “I remember I obsessively checked the ‘like’ count for a full week since uploading it,” she wrote of her first-ever post on Instagram, a selfie that now has close to 2,500 likes. “It got 5 likes. This was when I was so hungry for social media validation … Now marks the day I quit all social media and focus on real-life projects.”

Kunal Nayyar (Raj from The Big Bang Theory) posted a black image on Instagram 2 days ago with the caption "I've realized exposing my life through pictures allows for too much input/ insight/ hate/ advise- none of which I encourage or invite. But this is the very nature of sharing the privacy of my life via the internet. As much as I tried, it was never really for me. My love/ hate relationship with Instagram alas comes to an end. I’ll mostly miss all the pics of your pets. Adieu, for now, my dear friends, love each other as if it were your last breath:) #love"