Social media is a huge part of most people’s daily routine. Many of us post ‘insta perfect’ images for recognition, likes, comments – choosing online platforms as a form of communication, over actual human interaction. Social media is not the devil and I by no means want to portray it as such, but I do think it’s high time we, as a society, stop, and take check of how we interact with the world. From stomping out hate and abuse, to being a bit more honest, we, as a society owe it to the next generation to make the world wide web a nicer place to be.

I am not particularly hyper active on my personal social media profiles, but meeting Bobby and filming the #FarFromReality campaign, really brought home, just how vile some people can be when they can hide behind a keyboard. No-one should ever be subjected to such disgusting comments, not on the street, not online not anywhere. And on a personal level, I really, genuinely, am fearful of what social media will become, if change doesn’t happen sooner rather than later.

On the flip side, I do understand that social media platforms have many benefits – they help to connect people like never before, they make the impossible, possible, they bring joy and happiness to their users, but I think we as a society need to be mindful that they also don’t allow us to completely remove ourselves from reality.

Scrolling through Instagram, you’ll see a handful of photos of my children, one in particular jumps out – they’re walking through woods in matching puddle suits, holding hands. Adorable. But, not entirely the whole picture. What you don’t see is the pair of them wrestling one another to the ground not two minutes later, in the pouring rain, and 5”3 me hauling them both back home…all 5 stone of them, single handily. You get the picture. Life’s not always rosy, and whilst that picture definitely got more likes than if I’d have uploaded a blurry mass of brawling toddlers, I feel I have a social duty to make a commitment to be as real on social media, as I am in person. You see (I am told) my social is full of happy, smiley pictures; images that scream successful, independent, entrepreneur who’s nailing the work/life balance, and that’s simply not true. Don’t worry I am not about to start bleating on about my faults, worries, doubts and struggles, but I think it’s fair to say, that even though we all censor our thoughts and feelings in person too, we manipulate our lives on social to the next level – so that they’re borderline fictitious, and that’s just un-healthy. If everyone were a little more real online, a little more human, and a little less disconnected, it would be a far better place indeed (in my opinion).

#FarFromReality