Be Unashamedly You
Your time is limited. So don't waste it living someone else's life.
–Steve Jobs
With so much emphasis on “authenticity” in marketing and social media these days, we've decided to highlight the mantra of Tanja Barth – be unashamedly you.
In her article about how to unleash personal power simply by choosing to be yourself, Barth discusses how we sometimes assume different personalities depending on with whom we are interacting. We are more wooden and formal with our boss, for example, or more domineering and aggressive when we’re feeling insecure. While we are functioning from a point of pleasing others in order to receive validation, we are missing a vital part of the equation–ourselves!
Being "you" seems easy enough. Yet many of us invest so much time and energy trying to avoid being something that we perceive as “wrong”. One person I am close to has been accused of being “too tough” in some situations and “too kind” in others. Paradoxes aside, when did “kindness” (or “toughness” for that matter) become something to be ashamed of? Barth suggests that we’d have much more freedom and possibly much more success if we simply indulged in our perceived faults. In other words, be kind when you want to be and be tough when you think it’s called for. If we did this to the point where we actually started to enjoy it, wouldn’t the people around us start to enjoy it too? And maybe even perceive it as strength?
Be unashamedly you. When you do, being yourself becomes a tool you choose to use, rather than an unconscious reaction that happens when you don’t know what else to do.
Speaking of Being Yourself...
Instagram is hiding "like counts" to reduce focus on vanity metrics
In late 2017, Facebook published a report which looked at whether social media is good or bad for us. Not surprisingly the results were mixed. But as social media becomes more prominent, so too does the role it plays in society. As noted in Andrew Hutchison's article, this includes how the use of such tools affects our well-being and people's perception of self.
Although Instagram is one of the most popular and visually stimulating social platforms, according to a survey conducted in 2017, it is also "the worst social media network for mental health". The survey suggests that the platform contributes to higher levels of anxiety and depression. When you also consider that teens regularly delete Instagram posts which don't get enough likes, it's clear that such metrics are contributing to these concerns. Perhaps in response, Instagram has announced that they will be testing hiding "like counts" to reduce focus on vanity metrics.
It's an interesting experiment - Instagram, in particular, has become known for the way in which users focus on portraying a perfect image of themselves, often distorting reality for the sake of likes and shares.
Given the shift in focus onto wellbeing, you can expect to see more experiments like this in future, and it makes complete sense for Instagram to be at least testing to see how this changes audience behaviour.