by Ben Brychta
6 Reasons Why You Should Stop Sharing Instagram Inspirational Posts
Instagram is an impressive social media network. It allows you to share images with the world after just a few steps, to apply cool filters to them and it can be linked to your Facebook and other profiles, so you don’t have to waste time doing it again and again. And one of the most common things shared on Instagram are the inspirational posts, a source of motivation for many people.
Still, like everything else in life, nothing is perfect, and you should dose it down, or even completely stop sharing these posts. And here are the reasons why:
1. People who share inspirational posts aren’t the most intelligent According to a Canadian study called “On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullcr@p,” people who are more likely to share inspirational post aren’t the brightest ones. In this research around 300 people had their own cognitive abilities and personality evaluated. After that, they were asked to rate posts on a scale of one to five, classifying their texts as profound, bullcr@p or mundane.
Needless to say that those more inclined to mistake pure bullcr@p as something profound as those who were considered with the lowest levels of intelligence and more inclined to believe in conspiracies. So maybe you should re-evaluate what sharing inspirational posts say about yourself. And this activity is certainly not a part of any good habits you should follow.
2. Inspirational posts are often wrongly attributed Hardly anyone checks the source of the info on the posts they share online, leave alone inspirational posts specifically. They look as nice as they are that they seem harmless, right? But you would be surprised by how many inspirational quotes are attributed to the wrong author, for example.
One of the most famous quotes, “be the change you wish to see in the world”, apparently was never said by Gandhi. And this is just the beginning. There are plenty of statistics, scientific results and much more written in inspirational posts that are just completely mistaken.
So, if you care about your reputation, you should be highly careful about sharing inspirational posts, especially before being sure that they are correct.
3. It actually might influence someone’s decisions Even though you know yourself and are pretty sure that an inspirational post is no life-changer, someone on your followers' list might feel different about them. And let’s face it: we barely know the effects of words to our own mind; leave it alone to all those people who see what you post on Instagram.
And it doesn’t matter if the goal of any barely good inspirational post is to make people feel better about themselves. The truth is that they might just make someone feels worse if they believe they just can’t live up to all those expectations and dreams.
Some people might also start to compare themselves and to feel anxious about not being able to achieve all that is expected from them. And this could lead to an even lower self-esteem and all the problems that come with it.
Plus, you have no idea of how far your post will go, especially if you are travelling and hashtagging it, as it might offend someone else's culture – one of the things you will need to learn if you travel abroad, instead of wasting time sharing unnecessary posts.
4. They might have not even reflect your values or beliefs Are you sure that you really agree with everything written in all those inspirational posts? Or do you just share it out of habit and without giving too much thought to it? If this is your case, maybe you should stop sharing them right now.
Everything that goes on your Instagram is meant to be linked to you and your values or beliefs. And it includes inspirational posts. People won’t know that you didn’t really mind reading it carefully, worse that it is there just because it is cute. They will think that you agree with those words and that you want people to follow those ideas.
So, if you really have better things to do than curating their content, and evaluating how much you agree with them (or not) you better stay away from sharing this kind of posts.
5. It will make you sound like a smart-ass Nobody likes smart-asses and their misplaced confidence in their own intelligence – and in the certain ignorance of the rest of the world. And this is how you will sound if you keep posting inspirational posts.
All those quotes from highly intelligent or successful people bring a hidden purpose of making you closer to them, doesn't matter if you wish it or not. And people might think that you are comparing yourself to Einstein, Da Vinci or Steve Jobs.
And if you do it frequently is even worse. Who really wants to see lots of texts posted on a social media network meant to be full of pictures of yourself? And it leads to our next topic…
6. You should be posting images of your life instead Instagram is not a self-help network. It is a media created to make it easier to share pictures of yourself and of what happens in your life. That is to make clear why inspirational quotes will hardly increase your number of followers.
What people want to see is your best selfie (even if it is a really bad one), that weird picture you took on your last holidays and that cute animal you just saw while walking in the park. It is all about you and how you are experiencing life.
So leave inspirational posts aside, except if they are written by you or have something to do with the original picture you will post with it.
To sum up Posting inspirational images and quotes on your Instagram won’t increase your number of followers or make you more popular. They are more likely to backfire and embarrass you in a very short-term. The online world is eager for originality and real life experiences, and you can't go wrong when you stick to it. And, sometimes, changing just one small habit might affect your entire life.
About the Author Ben Brychta is an MBA student from San Jose, CA. He is a big movie classics fan and loves to share his opinion on different things happening in the spheres of the film industry, self-improvement and lifestyle. You can contact him through his Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.”
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