When Your Phone Makes You Jealous

It was in the early years of motherhood, when I just had a couple of tiny kids. The husband of a close friend was an amazing photographer, and he’d update their family photo site every couple months. The pictures were breathtaking. I’d look at them and drool over the sweet dimples, the long lashes, the irresistible baby grins with the blue-sky backdrop. They were the epitome of the shiny, happy American family in those photos… and I just wanted to be them. My couch always looked more stained and my laundry pile teetered higher every time I went on that site. And honestly? My own kids probably looked less cute to me too.

This was 2008; these were the days before social media. It was a Smugmug website, for Pete’s sake!

And you know where I’m going with this.

Jealousy. 

The byproduct of a social media life. For almost all of us.

Did you know scientists have found that it actually hurts to feel jealous? Sensors for envy and physical pain inhabit the same zone of the brain. 

And yet we subject ourselves to jealousy-fueling images, day after day after day.

Here’s what you need to know about jealousy and social media:

· It’s uber-common to feel jealous when scrolling others’ photos. After all, when others  share the most glittering, perfect moments of their lives, it’s easy to forget that there are more sides to every story.

· App engineers code envy into their algorithms, more or less, by basing measures of success on such features as ‘likes’ and ‘followers,’ plain data that makes comparison inevitable.

· Envy’s closely linked to (and draws on) anxiety and depression. So the more we use social media, the more these characteristics increase. Studies show those with anxious often turn to their phones to escape life… and yet these apps are engineered to fuel envy. This then worsens mental health – a vicious cycle.

· But envy actually resides in the human heart; the dynamics of social media scrolling just elicit and inflame it. We all compare. We are all susceptible to envy; it’s a human thing.

· We don’t have to be controlled by it. Our phone does not command us; the things we see on social media do not determine our worth. Take note of what sparks jealousy and then limit it – set screen time limits, hit unfollow. Use social media less.

If you find yourself fighting a threatening wave of envy while scrolling social media, save yourself! There’s still time (every time). You can get off. You are not a victim, because God is both real and good. Social media and its challenges are no match for him. He’ll replace our heart of envy with one of gratitude as we ask… and we can learn that what he’s given is enough.

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