Person Shares 'Decade Review' Vs. 'Unedited Decade Review' And People Adore The Honesty

The 2010s have come to a close, and if you’ve been on social media at all in the last month, you’ve probably seen post after post where people boast about their achievements over the past 10 years. Does comparing your life to what everyone else has done with theirs make you feel like you’ve missed out on all the luck this decade? Don’t feel sorry for yourself just yet—it’s well-established that the side that people show on social media is just a highlights reel, not what’s going on behind the scenes.

Christina Fattore, a professor and mother of two, decided to peel back the curtain when she posted her list of achievements of the decade. Yes, she has a lot to be proud of. But her career and family milestones, she reveals, didn’t come without a struggle, and the point she’s trying to make is that you never know what the people who you think have it all together are going through. People on Twitter are praising her for her openness, and for showing what the road to success can really look like.

Much has been written about the effect of social media on our self-esteem. Social psychologists point to envy, stoked by our impulse to compare ourselves to everyone else we see, as one of its major negative consequences. When everyone is boasting about the best things happening in their lives, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that your life, with all of its ugly moments, doesn’t compare. Some go so far as to speculate that boasting about your own highlights on social media can cause feelings of guilt that your real life doesn’t measure up to the one you present yourself as having.

Researchers say that people who “passively” use Facebook, that is, who spend most of their time lurking and reading other people’s posts, report feeling worse than people who actively post and comment. That doesn’t necessarily mean that running to social media with every bit of news is always healthy, but when we analyze our motives before posting, it can be used for good.

Taking advantage of the “social” side of social media that’s right there in the name and using it to connect with each other can actually bring feelings of social well-being. Personal posts also have the potential to draw attention to stigmatized subjects, letting followers know that they aren’t alone and giving more people the opportunity to share common experiences, as Fattore’s post has done.