Pressure to succeed while scrolling down your feed

While looking through different timelines on social media, a common trend in most posts from peers and celebrities are them reaching new achievements in life. However, only seeing success all over the page can create pressure to succeed at a young age.

Social media is everywhere today and all of its developments help advance the impacts its able to make on users. Whether that be posting about prevalent issues or having an outlet for starting a music career, members of Generation Z can take advantage of social media and let it lead them to new forms of success.

Several popular names like Yara Shahidi, Amandla Stenberg, and Zendaya, are all under 25 and have reached success in their industries through social media. Even youth like Marley Dias, who launched her own campaign to increase the representation of black girls as protagonists in literature and published her own autobiography, is only 13 years old.

It is inspiring to see many people in this generation already making positive impacts. However, as the successful people of today seemingly get younger and younger and the online presence of their achievements larger and larger, it also creates the idea that if someone does not have established successes already by 25, then they are failures.

Though this is not the message celebrities and peers are trying to send to their followers, society makes this generation compete against each other, academically and socially. Whether it is being told to outshine everyone else in the classroom or to invalidate one’s successes because they are “not as good” as others, today’s teens are pressured to be better and do better but at an almost unfairly fast pace.

Society publicizes a notion through social media that success is only possible within a certain time limit. In reality, there are no laws that limit the time someone is able to accomplish new goals or make new ones for themselves. Success can be made at any age, and it does not matter how long it takes to reach it. There is no true definition of what success is and what it looks like for everyone. It is defined by ourselves.

Since social media is inescapable, it is important to take a different perspective when scrolling through timelines. Instead of looking at your near future as the only years that you have a chance to flourish, expand your mindset and remember there is more time to reach success.