If I didn’t have a pun-tastic Instagram caption or if a certain someone didn’t see my Snapchat story, I used to go crazy with paranoia. I have a feeling that I am not alone on this, either. I probably sound like a grandma, using the “teenagers these days” speech, but I feel as though we spend way too much time focusing on how we seem on social media instead of focusing on how we appear in real life.                           

   We put so much time and effort and stress into proving how cool and worthy we are to our peers and our followers, and we don’t look up from our phones to ask the person sitting next to us how their day is going. I thank my dad for helping me realize this.

   My dad is a very big person in my life. He always helps remind me of my priorities. He’s taught me that improving your self confidence results in a happy life and that stressing over your perfect post will not help you gain that self confidence. As a result, his biggest influence on my life is teaching me to not care about what others think.

If you personally know every single person who follows you on any or all platforms of social media, then good for you. That is not the case for me, and it probably isn’t the case for most of you, either. These people who you are trying to impress with your photo quality or clever caption are most likely not worth it. If you feel like these factors determine the strength of your friendship with someone,  I have a spoiler alert for you: they’re not your friend. Your friends are people who love and support you despite your Insta caption post or how many likes you get or even how important you seem at football games because of how close to the front you are.

   Because of this realization (thanks, daddio), I am learning to put my phone down and focus on the people around me, especially my friends. Instead of scrolling through Twitter, I’m asking them how their day is going. Instead of asking them for help on a good caption, I am asking them if they would like to go get ice cream or go do something together.