Scrolling at night
Twenty minutes of a feed and you feel worse about your life than you did before you picked up the phone. Nothing bad has actually happened.
What is going on?
Step 1: What Would You Do?
There is often more than one good answer. Pick one and see what happens.
Results day
You did better than last time. Somebody near you did much better than you, and now you feel flat about your own result.
What do you do?
Step 2: What That Was
The name for what you just worked out.
Comparing yourself to other people is automatic. You cannot switch it off, and telling yourself not to do it does not work.
What you are comparing against
You see your own boring Tuesday and everybody else’s best twelve seconds of the month. The comparison was never fair, because the two sides are not the same kind of thing.
Numbers make it worse
Likes, followers, scores. A number invites comparison in a way a feeling does not, and it hides everything that produced it.
The comparisons that help
You against you last term. Or somebody slightly ahead of you, looked at for what they did rather than what they are.
Step 3: Try It
These ones do have right answers.
Useful or Corrosive?
Sort each comparison.
Which of these can you actually do something with?
Tap something to move it.
- Empty
- Empty
Step 4: Quick Check
Two questions, then you are done.
Question 1 of 1
What is the fairest way to compare yourself to somebody you admire?
Step 5: Your Life Mission
Something to do away from the screen. Nobody is checking.
One method, not one result
- Pick somebody who is better than you at something you care about.
- Find out one specific thing they actually do.
- Try that thing for a week.
Why: Copying a method is possible. Envying a result is not a plan.
Step 6: What You Learned
- Comparison is automatic. Choosing what you compare to is not.
- You see your ordinary days against other people’s best moments.
- Compare methods and past selves, not results and faces.
For the grown-up
Telling a teenager to stop comparing themselves does not work and signals that you do not understand the environment. Redirecting what they compare to is achievable; switching it off is not.
The edited-versus-ordinary point lands much harder when a young person makes the comparison themselves — their own camera roll against what they actually posted from the same day.
Adults model this constantly and invisibly, in remarks about other people’s houses, jobs and children. Worth noticing before asking a thirteen-year-old to stop.