Follows, likes, and views: let’s be honest, they’re fun to get, but in a world obsessed with following and being followed, do you ever wonder how you are being influenced?
Most of us don’t even realize the power that social influence has over us.
If you’ve purchased something from a link on the internet, you’ve been influenced.
If you’ve looked in the mirror and felt a little differently about your body after seeing perfect, likely edited, photos online, you’ve been influenced.
You might not even realize the power of influence until suddenly you’re looking in the mirror at a stranger.
I, too, have fallen victim to the influence of this world, trying to catch up with every new technology, every new trend, every new look, all while losing myself in the process.
Our attention has become a commodity in this world of following.
It is shifted to being told to look, dress, think, talk, and act a certain way, creating an overwhelming amount of confusion and pressure, leaving our minds full and our hearts empty.
We are so distracted by everyone else’s lives and so unhappy with what is right in front of us, our own lives are waiting to be lived.
I personally know people that spend up to seven hours a day on social media.
I think it’s safe to say that anything we are spending up to seven hours a day on is worth looking at closely and considering whether it is leading us to the life we desire.
Social media is not necessarily a bad thing. it has numerous benefits, such as providing a connection and a platform to tell your story.
However, the influence social media has had on our lives is an overall negative for most people.
I wonder what the difference would be if we were more cautious about who we were following.
The truth is, you control the messages and the photos that come into your world and influence you.
We often follow people who don’t have a clear direction in life and may or may not really know who they are. So how could we expect them to help us find who we are?
We can blame tech companies all day long, but this is our problem to fix.
The more you allow yourself to be influenced, be it inappropriate imagery or something that makes you feel insecure, the more those influences will feed into whom you are becoming.
It’s hard to unsee something, but it’s easy to delete or unfollow.
You have the power to stop following whatever might be leading you down a path filled with brokenness. There is no shortage of material available on social media for every walk of life.
Seek out what inspires you to be better, look for the people who point you to the life that you want, and unfollow, block, or delete the rest. Be intentional with your choices and what you are looking for.
This doesn’t just stop at social media.
Everything you do has the power to influence you, down to the movies you watch, the books you read, to the thoughts you think, so let’s not get complacent about the things that we see and put into our hearts and minds.
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