There’s a prevalent issue of ‘masking’ in our current generation.
It should be understood that what is shown in a photo is only a small moment frozen in time, and may not fully reflect the actual reality of the present.
This is because, in today’s age of social media, we are very selective of what we choose to show in the images that supposedly reflect our life to the outside world.
Our apps enable us to edit, filter, and beauty our photos, even our own faces.
Here are some examples.
We take a photo of a beach and crop out the pile of rubbish scattered at the side, showing only the sunset and the clean shores.
We show a beautiful highrise building in the city but omit out the slums surrounding the base of it, where the poorer population live.
We show the best behavior of our children on social media and the good grades they get in school.
We take multiple photos of ourselves with beautifying filters activated on our phones, maybe even going to the extent of photoshopping the selected few and posting the prettiest ones as profile photos.
What I mean is, that we present the best of ourselves, our bodies and faces, the places we go, and even the food we eat online.
So how does that impact us?
We may feel out of place in the reality of day-to-day life.
Where things may be difficult at home, or at work, and not to forget that there are obvious societal problems surrounding us, every day.
We ourselves may not even feel and look pretty on some days.
To be clear, it is fine to share nice things on social media.
But it will be an issue if we only surround ourselves with pretty images and start to think of them as a reflection of reality.
It can cast a shadow on the reality of what surrounds us, and we stop feeling empathy or a sense of responsibility to those around us who may need some help.
And when we start to become ignorant of problems around us, we start to become centered on the wrong themes in life.
So in this age, just be wary of what is shared online, and keep a firm foot on reality.
Do not be fooled.
