With so many people getting their impressions of the world from social media these days, I think it's worth reminding everyone, that social media presents a highly distorted view of the world, and can mess with your dating and overall confidence level, if you're not aware of it. I think younger people who grew up on the internet, are more prone to this, and it sometimes disturbs me to see so many young people here on PPD, getting depressed from various things they see online. SM distorts things in the following ways....

1) The Beauty Bias - Much of popular social media is created by the so-called "beautiful people" to serve their own ends, and sell you products. This includes Hollywood actors and actresses, models, porn stars, fitness icons, etc. The proportion of attractive people you see online, is going to be FAR higher than what you see in a mall, or even in a health club. I visit a large, popular health club 3-4 times a week in a big city, and I rarely see people who look like the ones on Tik Tok. Too much exposure to this, can easily fool an average person into thinking that everyone out there is beautiful....except you.

The use of of filters also adds to this effect. Although the filters are available for anyone to use, they further increase the perceived "beauty differential" between those who post pics and videos online, and those who don't. They make the "beautiful people" seem even more beautiful, and further erode our confidence.

Also, ugly and/or overweight people are often discouraged from posting, due to mean comments, and in the case of Tik Tok, even stitched videos that make fun of the original author. Those stitches bring in more people, and can cause people to "pile on" the original author.

2) The Success Bias - This one is a no-brainer, but we sometime forget that everyone does this. Say you're a professional chef, and you try 3 times to make a new recipe, filming the process each time. The first 2 attempts are failures, but the 3rd time you get it right. Which attempt are you going to post? Why, the successful attempt of course! That's how it is across all social media....people tend to post their successes, and hide their failures. If you're not aware of this, you can get the impression that everyone seems to do everything perfectly the first time.....except you.

Remember, you only tend to see the successes of others, they hide their failures. A fisherman only takes a picture, when he catches a big fish, he never takes a picture of his empty outstretched arm, during one of the many fishing trips where he doesn't catch anything, but those trips are just as much a part of his fishing experience, even if he doesn't talk about them.

3) The Popular or FYP Bias - This bias increases the harm of biases #1 and #2. Youtube, Tik Tok and other social media that use algorithms to determine your FYP pages, tend to show you what you click on, but they also show you what is currently popular. Guess what tends to be popular?.....you guessed it.....the beautiful and the successful! People like beautiful people who tend to do wonderful things, without mistakes, so that's what becomes popular, and that's what you see.

An extra-terrestrial alien who planned to visit earth, but decided to do a little bit reconnaissance, by monitoring social media first, would probably think, "Wow....These humans are all perfectly formed, and they do everything perfectly!". When the alien actually visited earth, it would be in for a surprise.

Don't fall for this stuff. Go to the mall this weekend, and pay close attention to the men and women you see walking around, and stumbling through life. They're a lot more ordinary than you think.