One very irritating thing for any person in the medical field is when Google is used as reference. The new trend in the field of mental health is clients showing us reels as reference.

There are millions of reels which can easily trigger anxiety into the sanest of the sanest person. The music and the visual can be top notch and deceiving that it’s just so easily believable.

The GRWM (get ready with me), a day in my life and many more such videos, can put any person to shame. They seem just so perfect. The ‘I woke up like this’ post, oh so perfect, but who really wakes up like that? I wake up with messy hair, saliva on half of my face and my acne patch mostly ending up on my eye. Although it may sound funny, what really is the reality of these social media posts? The false pretentious life that has been portrayed by one could lead another onlooker to some serious mental health issues like, depression and anxiety on not living the same kind of life. It could also lead to FOMO (fear of missing out). FOMO mostly in this context is not being up to the current trend. The teens of today feel if they are not in sync with the current trend they may look less desirable. The likes and shares on their post seem to decide their popularity.

With the boom of social media, conflicts and validations are on a rise. When I used to dress up and come out of my room, I had an elderly at home tell me, how I looked, but now with the rise of nuclear families and both parents working, there are rarely any elder at home, these kids seek validation in the virtual world. The number of likes determine the popularity; it’s a very dangerous trend which needs to be addressed.

When I was growing up, a neighbour’s daughter or a distant cousin used to be the point of reference or point of comparison, now with the boom of social media every person becomes the subject to be compared with.

With the entire family being on social media, viewing every story posted religiously just adds to the pressure of the child, everyone’s life is just out there on social media, rarely much filtered but had anybody ever thought, how can someone be so perfect?

Perfection is a myth and there is beauty is chaos, a person’s life is a mix of everything in different percentages, one would have happiness 30%, another may have it 40%. We all have it but in different capacity, how we utilise what we have to the fullest is what makes life, not investing time in investigating on what others have.

The biggest scam is relationship advices, the algorithms on social media works so well that they show the most appropriate reels and post pertaining to a person’s life. The way men and women are objectified; their feelings questioned are seriously very alarming.

So how does the manipulation happen?
Imagine a man and woman are in a relationship; the man suddenly becomes busy leaving the woman feeling lonely. Due to the busy schedule the man is not able to be really available on calls and messages….the woman goes on social media and the first reel she sees ‘when the tap water that usually gave hot water has gotten cold, believe me there is someone else filling their bucket’ boom a seed of suspicion is planted. Now the woman will see everything with suspicion. As it is she was lonely and these reels are like adding oil to the fire. People can genuinely be busy and that is ok, instant replies and multiple calls do not guarantee fidelity. A person can very much be available and still cheat. Cheating is a choice, a person can cheat right under your nose, and another can be faithful even being miles apart. What social media shows are just probabilities, it’s one’s discretion and trust that will make it relatable or not.

The other common thing seen is sending relatable reels to the partner, what I don’t understand is, two people fight, they are supposed to sit and talk, or wait till the both are ready to talk, but now sending relatable reels have become the problem solving mechanism, a person who cannot understand when you talk will never understand the reels you send, in fact it will become a point of irritation.

Social media can be a good form of learning, growing and exploring, but only when consumed in the right way. A person’s worth and fidelity should not be something that should be decided by the social media, it’s a persons own desecration. Any form of entertainment should bring in peace not chaos; if it is bringing in chaos then you are absolutely doing it wrong and need to rethink on its usage and consumption.

• Sandhya is a psychotherapist, child and adolescent counsellor.