Seeking Validation on Social Media? (How to Stop)
She kept hitting “refresh.” Each tap of the button chipped away just a little more of any good feeling she might have had about her new selfie.
Thirty-three minutes had passed, and not one response yet. By now, the likes should have started to come in.
Was it the filter? Did it look fake? Was it the pose? Maybe she shouldn’t have worn her hair up.
Noticing a shine on her forehead, she cringed. Ugh. How could she have missed that?!
How embarrassing! Hopefully, not too many of her friends had seen the upload yet. Quickly, she deleted the image. Back to the makeup app!
I don’t know if any of this resonates with you, but you’re in good company if it does.
Extensive research has shown that the type of excessive validation-seeking behavior we often see online is more common than we might think. It's not just a problem for teenagers or young adults; it's prevalent among individuals of practically all ages.
Maybe it’s not that surprising. After all, we humans are social beings and have been looking for love and acceptance since the Earth’s crust was still cooling.
Today, there are few places where our craving for approval is more evident than on social media. The entire existence of social media networks is based on the premise that people everywhere want to be seen and validated. Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and all its lesser-known cousins cater to our inborn, pre-existing vanity, inviting us to feed on meaningless attention generated by views, likes, comments, shares, followers, and friend requests.
Want to feel good about yourself? Smart? Beautiful? Witty? Accomplished? A fresh upload will provide you with the above in no time.
On the flipside, if the validation you seek doesn't come, it can instead lead to self-doubt and a negative self-perception. And that’s more than a little scary. Because, on social media, the feedback we receive or fail to receive may have zero to do with the quality or content of our posts.
People may “like” your upload just to be supportive or to get you to reciprocate. And if they don’t hit the like button, maybe it’s not because they’re ambivalent but because the site’s algorithm is causing your post to not show in their feed.
Whatever the case, our moms were right that measuring ourselves based on our peers’ approval is a bad idea. Because you never, ever want to give another person that much power over you.
Let me share a story with you about a dear friend of mine whom we’ll call Vicky. She’s a godly woman in her early forties, who made the decision to leave social media behind six years ago. Vicky isn’t her real name, but her story is very real, and it's one that I think many of us can relate to.
Just the other day, I learned why she kissed Facebook and the rest of ‘em goodbye. Vicky told me she felt convicted because she was compulsively logging in at all hours. Even while walking in nature, having dinner with her husband, or sitting in church.
For Vicky, this constant exposure to everyone else’s “perfect” life led to dissatisfaction with her own unexciting routine. She found herself regularly comparing her life to those of her online friends, and this comparison was starting to affect her relationship with the Lord.
“To sum it up,” Vicky confessed, “social media was eating up my time, messing with my mind, and killing my desire for the things of God.”
Before I say anything else, let me stress that there’s nothing inherently sinful about being on social media. But it does come with its share of problems. One issue is that we can easily confuse, at least subconsciously, someone’s carefully crafted highlight reel for their real life.
Of course, social networks are designed to showcase memorable experiences: exceptional date nights, exhilarating getaways, hilarious pet stunts, spectacular weight loss results... This is the type of content that tends to dominate our feeds. Rarely do we see posts about being insecure about our appearance, struggling with sin, having conflicts with our spouse, or being disappointed with our kids.
We want to be perceived a certain way (happy, outgoing, cheerful, self-confident, accomplished, glamorous, intelligent), and so we put our best foot forward, making sure to select only the snippets of our lives that we want the world to see.
Vicky gets this. She understands that social media platforms don’t reflect the totality of our life experiences or the depth of emotions that spring from them.
However, she still found that her social media feeds negatively affected her sense of self-worth. And because she didn’t like how they manipulated her mood, she eventually deactivated all her profiles across five different platforms.
As Vicky herself had predicted, her walk with God blossomed as a result.
Now, it’s your turn. If you feel that social media is consuming too much of your time, maybe even affecting your emotional or spiritual well-being, consider what steps you can take to regain control.
Is it to not log in on certain days of the week? Take a break for a few weeks—or months? Uninstall some apps from your phone for less easy access, limiting social media use to your laptop or tablet? Or is it, like Vicky, to do the “unfathomable” (her words) and delete your accounts?
Of course, there’s no one-size-fits-all here. Vicky would be the first to tell you that although giving up all social media was the right choice for her, she would never require or expect others to follow her example.
Because that would be legalism. And where the Bible is silent, we don’t want to make up rules.
As Christians, we should always keep the principle of 1 Corinthians 6:12 in mind. This principle teaches us to be careful not to be brought under the power of anything.
Yes, God has given us liberty, but not everything that is permissible is edifying (1 Corinthians 10:23). There are morally legitimate activities that can stump our spiritual growth—which is why we may sometimes need to restrict our liberty in certain areas if we want to fully experience the freedom that is ours in Jesus Christ.
L.B.
How would you describe your relationship with social media? Have you ever found yourself seeking validation on social media? Please chime in in the comments section below!
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