The Inner Critic & Social Media

The inner critic is often a topic in therapy . While the inner critic has a purpose, it’s something we can all struggle with at times. It can bring motivation, feedback, and support growth. However, it can sometimes become harsh and overbearing.

When this occurs we may feel unmotivated, paralyzed, and even hopeless. It’s often noted in the therapy, that social media further fuels that harsh inner critic. While it’s our nature to compare, the overwhelming volume and access to skewed comparables that social media brings, leaves many at risk of feeling worse off, just by logging in. Below are 3 tips to keep the inner critic in check while on social media.

1. Know when you’re comparing and despairing:

Compare and despair, is what’s known as a cognitive distortion (or thinking trap). Social media isn’t the only place we risk falling into this trap, but the speed which we can scroll, allows us to make many more comparisons than in-person day to day. Social media becomes a window into the highlight reel of others. It can leave us feeling like we aren’t doing enough, or what we’re doing isn’t exciting enough. Worse yet, it can make us feel like we, ourselves, aren’t enough. Messages of weight loss, beauty tips, filtered images inundate the space, leaving room for the parallel message that we aren’t good enough, as is. When we catch ourselves in this thinking trap, our inner critic has become counter-productive. Despair doesn’t motivate, it deflates. Recognizing that we’re engaging in compare and despair, creates room for solutions. This doesn’t immediately change the feelings that can flood us when we’ve begun to despair, however, the pause noticing allows, gives us the ability to create balanced thoughts, reality check and use self-talk, among other approaches to help us find our way back. Additionally, bringing in gratitude for who we are, as is, offers a great counter-balance to compare and despair.

2. Be a Picky Follower:

There are many profiles that will trigger the inner critic. It’s helpful to assess and reassess what profiles make us feel good, motivated, inspired and which ones deflate us. Follow and unfollow as needed. Often this shifts depending on what’s our current state of mind. However, we can always re-follow later if the content becomes useful again. Don’t be afraid to do what’s best for you. As much as social media can be a trigger, it can be useful. There are many positive profiles, that offer supportive messages that uplift and make us feel less alone in the struggle. It’s important to note that even those seemingly positive profiles can sometimes inadvertently trigger the inner critic or negative self-talk. It comes down to taking time to reflect and make a conscious decision, to follow or unfollow, based on what’s useful in our current context.

3. Remember we’re in it together, no one has it all together:

A myth that social media feeds us is that everyone else is doing so well, and are ahead of us. When we start believing this myth, it’s useful to pause to remember that most of us, post moments we want to remember, moments we want to share, not necessarily the struggle. However, we all struggle at times. We all have feelings of being less than in moments, disappointment that we’re not where we want to be or who we want to be as yet. No matter what social media, in-person critics, or the critic within says, no one has it all together.

The pros and cons of technology and social media can be debated. However, for now, most of us will continue to use social media. Thus, it remains imperative that we take care of our mental-emotional wellness while using these platforms.