Enginakho Maluleka Gr 9 Ridge Park College
It was 6.30am, and the first thing I did was reach for my phone before even getting out of bed. I had not fully woken up yet, but I was already scrolling through Instagram. Within two minutes, I had seen five “perfect” outfits that I knew I would never own.
I then clicked on a video and gasped in disbelief as I watched a comment section tear someone apart. Moments later, I asked myself a question: why was I even surprised? This had become the norm in our everyday lives, where seeing someone get tormented online was just another part of the morning routine.
In my view, this experience highlights the biggest issues we face today: the pressure to be “cool”, the fact that we can never truly escape from our screens, and the way we have become obsessed with a digital reality. It is ironic that we call this “social” media because, sitting there in the dark, I did not feel social at all. It felt as though I was scrolling through a world where teenagers in this generation must be someone else just to fit in.
I often find myself scrolling through TikTok and Instagram and seeing videos of celebrities and people who seem to have “perfect” lives. In my experience, it is hard to describe that specific feeling in your stomach when you realise you are comparing your real, messy life to someone else’s filtered highlights. I have personally felt the pressure to own certain things or act a certain way just to keep up with the “trend”. I believe we have become so focused on looking “cool” for a screen that we have forgotten how to just be teenagers. It feels like we are living in a competition where the prize is just more digital noise, leaving many of us feeling more alone than ever.
