It is not very often that I go on social media and am glad that I did. It’s not as if I haven’t benefited from it. There are a host of pictures of my friends and me that I look back to from time to time, and it allows me to hear of most of the events that I attend outside of school.

But despite my issues with social media, I check Facebook multiple times a day. It’s a boredom thing. Waiting in line? Pull out the phone. Sitting down to eat? Pull out the phone.

A lot of the things I see on Facebook now are shared articles, photos of significant others spending time together and pictures from someone’s vacation. I have unfollowed quite a few people on Facebook, and that’s mainly because I never knew them well, or I didn’t find what they had to say interesting. I have a Twitter but realized a long time ago that it is just a hotbed of, to paraphrase a Justin Timberlake song, everybody looking for the “flyest thing to say.”

So it can be a mindless time-suck. What’s the problem with that? Well, as is probably already known to those who have a presence on social media, people tend to post their “highlight reel.” I attended a wedding this summer and in some photos that were posted on Facebook I am dressed up and laughing and dancing with friends. Someone eating ice cream at home alone in their pajamas might look at the photos and go, “Wow I wish I had something to do.”

What they don’t know is that a few nights before the wedding I was binge watching True Blood in my underwear and trying to navigate my way through writer’s block. I had put in a full day’s work at my job and was too exhausted to even think about leaving my apartment. A quick trip to Facebook led me to say, “Wow I wish I had something to do.”

And these little moments of jealousy might seem, well, little, but studies show that social media has a bigger impact on us than we think.

It is great to aspire for more, to see someone doing something online and think to yourself, “That looks awesome! I want to do that.” The important distinction, however, is to remain loyal to that sentiment. If you’re going to try to make a change in your life, do it because you want the change for yourself. Not because you are trying to be someone else.

As people post blogs and put out photos on Instagram, the implicit message of, “You too can live your best life, and mirroring mine is a good place to start,” is sent out.

There is a definite bright side to social media, but shadows it casts can be more damaging to our society than we think. A study published in 2013 to the Public Library of Science states that Facebook use “predicts declines in subjective well-being in young adults.” As much fun as social media can be, some report feeling depressed because of it. And that’s mainly because social media has in some ways become a boredom thing. If you’re having a fantastic time with friends and are absorbed in the moment, then you might hear a “We should get a photo and put it on Facebook!” A photo is taken, and hopefully people move on with the moment.

It is the times when you sit around that it hurts. You’re looking for something to do. You’re bored, so you go on Facebook and get a glimpse of what other people are up to. And it’s OK to be jealous or to wish maybe that you had something like what you see. But the important thing is to act on that.

There are far healthier ways to get motivation, but perhaps none so ubiquitous nowadays as social media. Seeing people having a good time when you’re not having a good time can be a real mood killer. The atmosphere of social competition that it seemingly creates at times can have an adverse effect on mental health. Which is why I say, why not create a world for yourself in which boredom does not plague you? What you see on social media is only a snapshot, but why not try to make your whole life more like what you perceive to be happening in one moment of someone else’s.

Don’t mirror what you see other people doing. In your boredom, be inspired by what you see your peers doing, what they have achieved and what they have learned just by not being on the website that you find yourself on. And after you’ve taken a walk or read a bit of a book – or done anything really – don’t post about it on Facebook. If there’s anything social media can teach us, it’s that there are many people out in the world who have visited many places, learned many things and accomplished a whole lot. But I’d say that there is room for more. So, why be a mirror when you can have your own adventure?

Put down your phone and set off.

Jeffrey Langan can be reached at lang5466@stthomas.edu.