A short YouTube talk by Betsy Guerra reflecting on how social media presents a curated, partial view of people’s lives. Using personal stories about grieving her daughter, Guerra explains she posted only hopeful moments while keeping raw pain private, and warns viewers not to measure their happiness, relationships, or success by social-media appearances.
Chapters
Today I'm going to talk about the true face of Facebook and social media. I'm going to give you some personal stories to not throw anyone under the bus. When I first lost my daughter, I had three friends that I would email whenever I was having a really hard time. I would wait till everybody would go to sleep in my house and I would go to the kitchen and write this email uncensored. And I would cry and curse and God knows what things I wrote in there. But I blamed people. I cursed, I questioned God, I did all these things that in my right mind I wouldn't typically do. But because I was in such excruciating pain and darkness, I needed to let it all out. I would sit down, write all that, and I told my friends, do not reply. I don't want your pity. I don't want. It's going to be okay. I don't want anything. Don't reply. So they obeyed. And then after I would let all of that out, the next morning I would wake up to a new day. The sun would have come out. I felt better because I let it all out. And then I was positive and I had a different perspective. And I posted on Facebook. I would post. Then I didn't post when I was enraged or anguished or in darkness or like a deranged woman, which I was many times I posted when I was light hearted and hopeful. And the reason I'm sharing this is because that's what we see on Facebook and Instagram and social media. Snapchat, for the most part, we see what other people either want to share or the things that they want to tell you. We see the positive because it's what they want us. It's how they want us to see them. We see what either other people want to share or what they're capable of sharing in the moment. I didn't think about posting on Facebook when I needed to vent. It wasn't appropriate. And in that moment, what I needed was to feel. It wasn't to tell the world what I was feeling. That was a more intimate thing for me. And I didn't do it so that you think that I'm perfect and I'm strong. I did it because that's when I was inspired to share. Who's inspired to share their pain? And while they're going through it, we like to share the glory, not the story. So I'm telling you all this in hindsight because it's easy and because I want you to know that what you see on social media is not the entire truth. It's just half of it or what the other person wants you to see. It's. There's a mask. There are things and people and experiences sitting behind the computer and the phone. And the reason I'm telling you this is because we use social media nowadays as a frame of reference. We decide if we are happy based on how we see people feel happiness in social media. We decide if our relationship is beautiful, if it's compared to the other people. We decide if we're successful based on what other people's accomplishments are. How has social media become the frame of reference to determine our lives? It just doesn't make sense. And I just want you to know that a lot of people that come see me, the first thing they share is on social media, we're like, perfect. Nobody would ever imagine that we're going through this. I have people that tell me my husband is not serious enough because he doesn't post those beautiful things that my friend's husband posts. Guess what? Her friend's husband comes to see me because their marriage is falling apart. And the reason he uses social media to post all these beautiful messages is to try to convey his wife that he loves her and bring hope back into the relationship. So when you're seeing things and you're like, aww, how beautiful, you don't know. You don't know what the purpose and the intent of that is. Do not measure your life, your success, your happiness through social media. If this was helpful, please give me a thumbs up and subscribe and share with somebody that would benefit from hearing this. And if you want more content like this, please write to me by visiting betterwithbessie.com.
