The Face You Show: The Reality and Filter Effect in Social Media

Due to a long career of doing business internationally, I’ve been fortunate to be able to make friends in almost every single part of the world. But because of my business and travel life I spend very little time in places and usually have a long hiatus before I go back. Thank goodness we have social media which allows us all to keep in touch and keep tabs on each other. 

But I’ve discovered the downside recently. It’s happened a few times during recent trips. After a half decade or even decade you meet up with a friend and as you share all the things happening in your life. And I tend to be pretty honest on both the good and bad of life, especially the last few years. Which were particularly rough and great at the same time. 

One friend actually said “wow, I had no idea how messed up your life is based on all the pictures you show online. Jet-setting around the world, big happy smile on your face. Big happy smile on your little girl's face all the time.”

He is absolutely right. And it illustrates the “Filter effect”, we only show our best face publicly while hiding all the crap. It’s our ego, of course, we show only the best parts. Additionally, the filter effect is multiplied infinitely on social media. 

Two key lessons from this. 

One: don’t believe everything you see online. For every awesome Instagram picture you see, they probably went through 100 to find the perfect one. You get a very warped, over optimistic and unrealistic view on someone’s life on social media. It is a singular, very curated and cleaned up facet of someone’s life you see on social media whether Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or TikTok. 

I’m not saying it’s bad to aspire, strive and aim high, you 110% should do so. Get all the toys, build wealth and have an awesome lifestyle while having the resources to take care of those you care about. Just should know that it was probably a much longer, painful and harder path than the one being shown. 

But the Second lesson is: there is always a price to pay for what you want. I wanted career and monetary success and it came at the cost of a stable home and family life. But I still did it. For you, based on what I know now, it’s better to be more intentional about what you want. And then do the work and pay the price. You will inevitably get it. Just make sure it’s what you actually want in the end.