How Social Media Filters Might Be Highlighting Our Insecurities

I remember when I first decided to download the Snapchat app from my mobile phone app store. I had been seeing various video clips from tons of people on my social media account. I thought it was cool so I jumped on the Snapchat bandwagon — I quickly visited the app store on my android phone and installed the app.

Immediately I opened the app, began trying out all the different filters. Some were funny — like the ‘dog face’ filter and the ‘dancing banana’ filter, some were exciting — like the ‘face swap’ filter, while others were super pretty.

For a few days I had so much fun with all the features on this amazing app until for some reason, I began to like the pretty face filters a little too much. Soon, I preferred my face on the Snapchat filter to the way it actually was. On the app, my face was gorgeous. My eyes were bigger, my lips were prettier and my nose was pointier. Apparently, the ‘me’ on Snapchat was way prettier than the actual me — or so I thought.

Soon I couldn’t post any pictures on my social media accounts without using the Snapchat app. The worse part was, I began to avoid physical contacts with my friends on social media who have never seen me or hadn’t seen me in a long time. I feared they’d see me and realize that I wasn’t as pretty in real life as I was on social media. Unfortunately, I gradually began to be ashamed of my real face.

. . .

How I Overcame My Insecurities

The first step in solving a problem is to recognize that it does exist.

— Zig Ziglar

The moment I realized that this harmless social media app which was meant to be used for just fun, was beginning to make me more unhappy about myself, I knew I had to cease using the app as soon as possible. But merely acknowledging a problem isn’t enough to solve it and it definitely didn’t solve mine.

Several times, I had decided I was just going to delete the app from my phone but then, I’d end up chickening out. This went on for a couple of weeks until one day, a friend of mine whom I hadn’t seen in ages was getting married but I was too self-conscious to attend the wedding because I was afraid that all of my old classmates who followed me online would see me and see that I wasn’t all that pretty. My friend was so disappointed in me for not showing up and I hated myself for that.

That day, I realized that the sooner I got over my insecurities the better for me because with the way I was going, I was going to lose out on many more friendships if I kept hiding out in my house. And I definitely wouldn’t want that.

This time, I decided I was going to do it for real. But first I avoided opening the app for about a week, all I did was read books on self-love and confidence. I read books like, ‘Self-Compassion’ by Kristin Neff, and ‘I Heart Me’ by David R. Hamilton.

Then I started spending more time in front of the mirror, scanning through my entire face and consciously appreciating every feature on it. I appreciated my small eyes, my big lips, and my not so pointy nose. Soon, I began to see the beauty I thought I could only get from makeups and filters.

That was the moment I finally hit that “uninstall button” on my phone’s app manager.

You’re probably wondering why I hadn’t deleted it earlier. Well, if you’ve ever been in love with a bad boy or bad girl, you’d get why. You know they’re bad for you, you don’t want to leave them but you know you just have to for your own sake. So instead of breaking up outrightly, you gradually try to pull away. You start by limiting your visits, soon you stop picking their calls, and even though you still miss them and probably low key aren’t ready to say your final goodbyes. You just got to. It’s messed up I know, but it’s a process and you just got to take it a step at a time.

That was how it was with the app for me. I had to take it a step at a time before I finally let go — because now I no longer felt the need to use filters for my pictures.

Now, not only do I love my natural face, I hardly feel the need to even wear make-up — I leave my face bare most of the time. So in some way, trying out the Snapchat app wasn’t such a bad thing as it helped highlight my insecurities. Before then I had no idea that my insecurities were that much of a big deal. But then, thanks to my experience with the phone filters, I was able to identify the problem, as well as find a solution.

. . .

Final Words

Note that I’m in no way condemning the use of social media filters or any kind of filter for that matter, I’m saying that even if some of these filters are harmless and help spice up our photos, it’s possible that it could be highlighting some of our insecurities.

Sure, it’s not solely responsible for our insecurities, but when it gets to the point where we can’t seem to function without using these filters then it might just be a serious concern and requires immediate actions. If you’re like me and you can relate to this, I think it’s time to take a break from these filters and start appreciating your natural God-given beautiful facial features, or what do you think?

—

This post was previously published on Medium.

***