Obsession with Perception

    We live in a culture absolutely obsessed with perception.  Our lust for social media proves this, since much of social media is more about perception, and less about reality.  Is your Facebook profile a complete picture of who you really are?  Or is it how you want to be perceived? 

    Take my homemade Facebook diagnostic: 

• How long do you spend contemplating about what to post? (more than 30 seconds is excessive). 
• Do you ever go through your day thinking of what cool story or picture you can post?  (Someone admitted to me, “I’m always thinking, ‘what will I post next?’”)
• Before posting a picture, do you do multiple takes with your phone so that you can get just the right shot?  Do you spend more than one minute on Instagram, doctoring that shot?  (Don’t worry.  Most people know what you really look like anyway.)
• Do you read about others on your news feed and feel inadequate or boring by comparison?  (We have a natural tendency to inflate truth.) 

    Disclaimer:  Facebook is not inherently evil (but the people who use it are . . . I’m a user since 2007).  Of course, there is a lot of healthy sharing that goes on in social media.  We can appropriately disclose things about ourselves simply for the sake of sharing information. 

     But there is a fine line between healthy self-disclosure and obsession with perception.  Quite simply, obsession with perception is vanity.  We all obsess over how we are perceived.  “Do people like me?”  “Respect me?”  “Admire me?”  Vanity obsessively desires attention and admiration from others through appearance, qualities, abilities, or achievements. 

     I’m not suggesting you abstain from Facebook.  Just consider, “Why am I posting this?”  OK, I’m going to post some pictures of my kids to show everyone how cute they are and how awesome I am.