No More Likes!

At one point or another, we’ve all somewhat obsessed over the engagement on a photo we just posted on Instagram which we are so proud of. We’ve experience the feeling of satisfaction when we refresh the app and see that we got a ton of likes, or the getting  frustrated that it’s not doing as well as we wished. This creates an unhealthy habit of using the number of likes as self validation or to rank someone’s self worth. This leads to a whole world of problems like depression, false social status, and tons of others.

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 Recently, Instagram has decided to start testing hiding likes from the platform. You can still like other people’s posts and you can still see how many likes your posts are getting. The change is that the only person who can see how many likes a post has gotten is its owner. This updated has been rolled out in countries like Canada, Australia, Italy, Japan, Brazil and more.

The intention behind this change is to take away the pressure of how many likes your post will get. This will hopefully increase the authenticity and the variety of content on instagram. With the number of likes on a post being so important to everyone, people will only post the specific content that gets high engagement. This kills creativity, freedom and uniqueness. Often times the posts that “perform the best” aren’t what we want to see. Negative news, drama, photoshopped attractive women and other similar things out perform creative, unique or positive content because it causes  a reaction from everyone, which helps it get more engagement. Hiding how many likes a post gets will help relieve the pressure to post this type of content that gets the most likes. It will transition the focus from likes to the content itself.

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 It’s not good news to everyone. A lot of influencers and small businesses that rely on Instagram for their income aren’t happy. They say that it has hurt their engagement and decreased how many likes they’re getting. Influencers also think this change will hurt the way the get brand deals since likes is a determining factor of the price they charge. Potential new brands that might be interested in working with them can’t see how many likes they get anymore.

I personally disagree with these two main complaints. Although both statements are somewhat true, it’s not really hurting anyone because everyone suffers equally. It’s not just one influencer or brand seeing a decrease in engagement. Each person/brand is still in getting the same engagement relative to their competition. As to brands not being able to see the number of likes an influencer gets, it’s really not a big deal because the all influencers are still on an even playing field. Influencers can still share the number of likes with the brands since the likes are still there, simply just publicly hidden. Overall, I think it’s a fantastic change with lots of benefits and a very welcome improvement in my eyes.

Do you think this is a good change or is it a bad idea?

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Is It Okay To Photoshop Pictures?

With social media comes a lot of hidden rules. One of the most debated ones is around photoshopping pictures. Over the years social media platforms like Instagram have become more and more serious. Who looks the best? Who has the most aesthetic feed? Who gets the most likes?

With the competitiveness of social media rising, people will do anything to get an advantage over all the other users. Photo editing has become a common way to level up your pictures and have them stand out. This has been a part of photography for a very long time, but as of recent, it has become a more mainstream thing to do for social media posts.

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 Using software like photoshop gets very mixed reactions. Some people are strongly against it, and some advocate that it’s perfectly fine to use. 

The side of people against editing pictures often bring up being “fake”, increased depression or natural beauty. They believe that editing your picture isn’t being authentic and that you’re faking the way things look for social media. From all the exposure to seeing everyone post perfect pictures, and from using apps that point out all the ways you can improve the way you look, there is a link to increased depression rates. To combat that, they think instead of editing photos, we should embrace natural beauty instead of going for perfection. 

On the other side of the debate, a lot of people are totally in support of editing pictures. The common belief is that everyone should be able to have the freedom to do whatever they want. At the end of the day, social media is just entertainment, not a place to see realism. If people enjoy editing their pictures, or it makes them feel better, they should be able to do that without being judged. Photography is an art form, everyone needs to let their creativity loose and do as they please with their photos. Paintings don’t need to be realistic, neither should photos.

I personally am among the group of people who are in support of photo editing. As a photographer, it is a staple of the art. Often  times I can express my emotions and vision just as much via post processing as I can with the original photo itself. Slightly adjusting the lighting and colours can completely change the mood and emotions from a photograph.

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 Although the term “photoshopped” is used loosely and there are different degrees of it. Something as basic as a colour-grade is very minor. It is simply just adjusting the colours and lighting in a photo. The next step further would be fixing simple blemishes or removing distracting objects from the background like a piece of trash on the ground. I still think this is pretty normal and non-offensive. However, some people take it to a whole different level and completely change their appearance. Changing their eyes from brown to blue, taking 20 pounds off their waist, adding a more muscular stomach, removing cellulite, etc. The list goes on and on. I think this is getting close to crossing the line, but it’s still very common for celebrities and professional models.

With all that being said, I still believe there is nothing wrong with editing pictures. If we just keep in mind what we see on social media is often edited and not always realistic, there isn’t any reason why people shouldn’t continue to edit their pictures if they want to.

What’s your stance? Is it okay or is it wrong to do?

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Is it okay to #photoshop social media posts? Find out now http://bit.ly/photoshop-IG

Social Media v.s Reality

How do you perceive someones life based on their Instagram account? I’m sure 10x better than what it truly is, as it’s just a highlight reel of their life.

When they go on vacation, they post it. A fun moment from a Friday night out, they’ll post. A  picture that they look flawless in, it’ll get posted. You won’t often see an ugly photo at a bad angle, a caption about a mental health struggle, or a video of someone alone doing nothing.

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 It’s understandable though. Even before social media, our parents wouldn’t go to school on Monday and boast to their friends about how they spend Sunday night alone, crying in their room. Everyone would be sharing the highlights of their weekend. I’m sure at some point in elementary school your teacher went around the class on Monday asking each student to share one thing they did on the weekend. Nobody ever talked about how bad it was, they would simply say the one most exciting they did.

With social media amplifying the sharing of positive life events, it becomes a dangerous situation. People often use social media to keep up with the lives of their friends, family and celebrities they like. This means they only get to see every time one of these people travel, reach a milestone, buy a new car, take a beautiful picture or something along those lines. They’re missing the full story of these people’s lives and get a very skewed idea of how it truly is.

This is damaging when we start to compare our lives to the “lives” we see all the time on social media. It’s easy to compare all the things we don’t like about our lives to how seemingly perfect these  other people’s lives are based on what we see from social media. It’s a very unfair comparison but it’s so natural to do it without us realizing it.

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Although it could be a positive change, I don’t think the route of the problem will change. I personally don’t expect any of you to start posting your failures, unattractive pictures or boring days on social media and stop sharing your highlights. I only ask that if everyone is going to continue using instagram as their life’s highlight reel, make sure you look at everyone else’s profile strictly as that. Remember, what you see isn’t always realistic, so don’t look at someone’s instagram profile as how their life truly is. Never compare their highlighted reel to your real life!

I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences with this. Let’s discuss in the comments below 🙂

Social Media vs Reality! #fake #2faced http://bit.ly/social-media-vs-reality

Why is my life so much worse than everyone else’s? It’s not always what you think it is: http://bit.ly/social-media-vs-reality

3 Ways Social Media Is Killing Your Relationships!

Living in a world full of social media comes with many benefits. Although that’s great, what a lot of you fail to see is the negative effects it brings, like the impact it has on your relationships. Social platforms like Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube are known to be detrimental to your relationships.

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UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS

Platforms like Instagram give us a sugar coated highlight real of other people’s lives and relationships. You’ll often see the appreciation posts of someone talking about how amazing their partner is, or posts showing off the wonderful thing their partner did for them. You will see people post about the car their boyfriend bought them, or a picture of the couple on a beach together, or them sharing fancy meal at a 5 star restaurant. Never will you see a post about how often a couple fights, or how boring most of their day is. This puts the idea into our heads that we should be expecting for our relationship to be like this. Leaving us disappointed with what we have and feeling like there is something wrong with our relationship.

COMPARISON

Whether we realize it or not, we are constantly comparing what we see on social media to what we have. I often see this happening in the form of comparing how our partner looks to what we see on social media. I’m sure at some point you’ve caught yourself thinking: “man, I wish my girlfriend looked as good as her” as you scrolled past a picture of an Instagram model. With all the different attractive people you’ll see over and over on social media, it starts to become the new “benchmark” for what a person should look like. It can lead to you losing satisfaction with who you have and feeling that the person you’re with isn’t attractive enough. We always want the things that we don’t have.

TIME

Time is the one thing you can never get enough of and it is one of the most valuable things. With social media’s infinite scrolling and endless amounts of content, you’ll have wasted your full hour of spare time before you even realize. With our busy lives, we all often struggle to find the time to go on a date with our partner or find an hour to just relax. It is very important to have time outside of work, school and other activities to spend with your partner. Simply cutting out social media will usually free up that time needed, as on average you spend 2.5 hours on social media every day! Don’t let your phone take priority over your loved ones.

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Is this something you’ve personally dealt with (in a romantic relationship or with a friend/family member)? Feel free to share your experiences in the comments below. You’re definitely not the only one!

Is your relationship being killed by social media? These are 3 common things you might be suffering from: *LINK*

Is your relationship being killed by social media? These are 3 common things you might be suffering from: *LINK* #relationshipadvice