The Instagram Illusion: Loving Your Real Life

Instagram. It's a highlight reel, a constant stream of perfectly curated moments. Sheitel-machers, makeup artists, clothing stores, shoe stores - anything visual and attractive is easily posted and burned into the eyeballs of billions of Instagram users. From a marketing standpoint, its use is a no-brainer. But let's be honest: what's it doing to you?

It's degrading your life. It's sapping your happiness and leaving a void that can never be filled. It's taunting you with impossible dreams, eternally out of reach.

Has your Mom ever told you “not to compare”? Yeah, right. We all compare. Especially our own pitiful selves against these magical people appearing daily on the ‘gram. Those ones with the life, family, and looks WE were meant to have. But life stole it from us.

We’re just not there. YET.

We shut off the screen and see our lives in suddenly unsatisfying ways. It’s all wrong….. It starts with the wardrobe, goes to the house, to our Souls, then to the spouse, the kids, EVERYTHING.

Nothing is ever enough when you’re in comparison mode. But here’s that model’s dirty little secret - they’re looking around too. Cuz it looks glamorous to you, but not to its holder.

Anything you’ve achieved isn’t enough when somebody some where’s got more, got different.

And here’s dirty little secret #2 - it’s not real. You’re not seeing the screaming child she just left inside as she’s recording, all smiles, on her porch. You’re not seeing the mud-splattered kid that really exists. You’re seeing what happens once in a blue moon and made to look like it’s daily. You’re not seeing…. That they’re just like you.

That all the perfection is a mirage.

Think you cannot do business without it?

Little Loungers is a high-end Brooklyn children's Boutique doing an enormous amount of business in the Jewish community - and they’ve never used Instagram.

They’re not the only ones. Perhaps we really do not need it. Maybe business can happen without it. Maybe we can dress ourselves, our children, and outfit our home beautifully without it.

Let’s rethink this platform’s use. Let’s decide if we want to be subjected to the fake glamour that makes our own lives seem insignificant. Let’s really lean into our own perfect lives and learn to love the amazingness we already have. Let’s start loving ourselves more today.

The Bigger Picture: Social Media and Our Well-being

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, in his book "The Anxious Generation," highlights the alarming rise in anxiety and depression among young people, correlating it with the rise of smartphones and social media.

He points out that virtual interactions can be shallow and contribute to the spread of mental health issues, especially among vulnerable teens. The constant interruptions and the "attention extraction economy," where tech platforms profit from keeping us clicking and scrolling, contribute to fragmented attention and a sense of inadequacy. Haidt and other researchers have found a significant increase in major depression among teenage girls since the early 2010s, coinciding with the widespread adoption of social media. This isn’t just about feeling a little down; it's a real shift in mental well-being.

Reclaiming Our Focus, Reclaiming Our Lives

Tech platforms make billions of dollars keeping us clicking, scrolling, and sharing. Just like a tree is worth more as lumber and a whale is worth more dead than alive—in the attention extraction economy a human is worth more when we are depressed, outraged, polarized, and addicted. This attention extraction economy is accelerating the mass degradation of our collective capacity to solve global threats, from pandemics to inequality to climate change. If we can’t make sense of the world while making ever more consequential choices, a growing ledger of harms will destroy the futures of our children, democracy and truth itself.

Kol Hakoved to Sary Wigs of Lakewood for  Closing their Instagram Account with more then 40000 Followers (mostly Yiddishe Mammas) and what a Kiddish Hashem, Yes Instagram is a great tool for business, and I’m sure it helped Her/them a lot in business too… and giving it all up for Kdushe and Hashem is simply being מקיים the words that we say three times a day ובכל מאודך… We need radically reimagined technology infrastructure and business models that actually align with humanity’s best interests.

Perhaps, like Little Loungers, we can thrive without constantly chasing the Instagram ideal. Perhaps business can happen without it. Perhaps we can dress ourselves, our children, and outfit our home beautifully without it.

Let's rethink this platform's use. Let's decide if we want to be subjected to the fake glamour that makes our own lives seem insignificant. Let's really lean into our own perfect lives and learn to love the amazingness we already have. Let's start loving ourselves more today.