Does too much scrolling on social media ruin your own career?

We all get incredibly tired of that endless scrolling on Instagram and yet we do it every day again. It's addictive. It's relaxing.

Let's see what the coolest people on earth are up to again: what jogging suit are they wearing in quarantine and OMG, what sushi are they eating? Stalking on social media can lead to insecurity about your own jogging suit and your self-made paprika soup, that's been known for a while. Because those pictures (that you see passing by in your timeline) are all equally beautiful. The banana breads have always succeeded with someone else, the seas are always turquoise, and the hair is curled to perfection seven days a week.

But what is new is that some experts now seem to know for sure that constantly being on social media can be bad for your own ambitions, your own career. Not only can you feel insecure about not being as slim as those women you follow, but you can also be frustrated with your own career. Because those people on Instagram always seem to be getting promotions, having cool workplaces with trendy fluffy coffees, and experiencing the coolest colleagues and work outings. You always see someone having a #girlboss moment and that makes you doubt what you are actually doing with your life. What you are actually baking from your career: and after some scrolling, you find that your job doesn't amount to much and that you are wasting your life. It feels like you are failing.

Social comparison is what it's called in psychology: comparing yourself to others. This also causes delays in your career: by comparing yourself to successful others with 1.4 million followers, work meetings in Paris, and their own clothing lines and perfumes here and there, it seems like your life amounts to nothing. That insecurity indirectly leads to hesitation in your own work life: you take fewer risks, you feel frustrated, you are less proactive. So social media actually hinders you a lot if you really want to make it.

I think it's especially important to remember that 5 percent rule on Instagram. Because, as I read somewhere: what you see of someone on Instagram, YouTube, or whatever, shows only about 5 percent of that person's real life. We all filter for appearances, we don't share selfies of a double chin or a full laundry basket, we only show the most beautiful photos to others. Don't forget that: all the smart and successful people you follow have also had to work hard for their dream jobs and they too will sometimes lie awake from financial stress.

Even the most beautiful world success  didn't come easy to anyone, and even Oprah must have sat grumpily behind her laptop at times. Yet she has powerful advice for working women – which you should especially keep in mind, that everything has to do with those social comparisons. You need to stop that. After 30 years of making television, she swears by this: ‘Just focus on yourself.’.