Last week was a bit of an off-week for me. I felt very demotivated by social media and I noticed that I have this love-hate relationship with social media. As much as I love social media and would love to pursue my professional career in social media in the future, I also kind of hate it for a few reasons. Today's Monday and it's a new week. I am feeling much better again and I am much more motivated to blog and post on Instagram again. So to break down this whole thought process I have gone through last week, I thought I would share this post on the blog. Hoping to share something relatable or maybe to bring you a peak into my life.

WHY I DON'T LIKE SOCIAL MEDIA

One of the main reasons I don't really like social media is whenever people think my life is perfect. Every now and again I get comments from followers on Instagram and sometimes even of some of my best friends who know my quite well, think that I have this picture perfect life. It’s because I used to only share the good parts of my life on social media. While maturing over the last couple of years, I have openly been speaking about my anxiety, the panic attacks I suffer from and not being a very ‘social’ person as it scares me. I am not perfect, and I am willing to share it more and more on social media nowadays.

Whenever I feel particularly down, low and don’t feel very ‘me’, I also don't like being on social media. It only makes me feel even more low, down and insecure about me, my body and my life in general. I feel like I don't fit in on social media, and I don't compare to all these bloggers and instagram girls who travel the world. And I know that I am not alone when I say this. Whenever I speak to friends about this they tell me they feel the exact same and recently I have also noticed that quite a few bloggers feel like this too.

Besides feeling insecure, it also makes me feel so alone. I never really know why it makes me feel so lonely on bad days. Probably because I see friends, influencers and bloggers I love hanging out and having fun while I am alone at home. Then there’s the overthinker in me again, telling me it’s my fault. Because I am boring and no one wants to hang out with me. It’s a very negative way to think about yourself and I have spoken to my bestest friends about this. They basically called me nuts for telling myself this, but also told me I couldn’t be more wrong. Social media is just so easy to make you feel so lonely.

WHY I LOVE SOCIAL MEDIA

But then again, I love social media because I have met some really amazing friends on the Internet. If I had not started blogging in high school, I would have never met some of my international blogger friends in London. I feel like the Internet is such a great way to meet new people and just make new friends! It’s also so amazing to build your own community or start your own community.

Besides making friends via blogging I also find that other bloggers and influencers are such a massive source of inspiration to me. My favourite girl bloggers that are always giving me so much inspiration are Chantelle, Pinja, Kelsey, Allie and my ultimate girl crush and blogging babe Florencia. I love all of their fashion styles so much, and just generally love who they are as people. If I wouldn’t be active on social media or even be a blogger, I am pretty sure I would have never gotten my inspiration from them, so then again I am so thankful for social media.

I am also thankful for social media or the Internet, as it is my creative outlet. I always ramble on and on my blog here and love being creative on- and offline. Without social media, I probably would have never become this passionate about writing in my teenage years, as well as my adult life. Without social media and all of my work I have created on my blog, I probably would have never even gotten my internship last year.

That’s why I am also so grateful for social media. While studying Communications at university, I have noticed that I love social media. I love how it works, I love small the world feels whenever we’re ‘online’ and what I love most, is how it connects people all around the world. That’s why I would love to learn even more about social media at university and eventually even pursue a career in social media – if that’s even possible!

So this is my love-hate relationship with social media. I feel like it’s such a good and creative hub to be on when you have a positive mind and are mentally okay. But I definitely feel like if you’re not mentally okay or have off days, social media can only make you feel worse about yourself. Therefore I think it’s so important to just take a step back from time to time. It’s good to take a step back from the online world to just live in the real, offline world.