In a world where lip injections and over-plumped derrières are the norm, it is hard to find a sense of natural beauty. Since 2000, the number of plastic surgeries performed, either invasive or non-surgical, has increased colossally each year. Add to that the onset of social media, most notably Instagram and Snapchat, the beauty world has completely revolutionized the way people think about themselves. Looking like the girl in the magazine has now become looking like the girl on the Instagram page. Instagram’s start-up in 2010 gave young men and women the chance to showcase their best features and hide their imperfections. Not revolutionized coincidentally, the number of Botox or other filler-related procedures had an over 33% increase in 2015 compared to 2010. However, the quest to find beauty does not come without its complications.

I’ll be blunt— 99% of what viewers see on their feed is not real. No one naturally has a 24 inch waist with a Kim Kardashian figure and airbrushed skin. If they do, then props to them, but it’s highly unlikely. Additionally, most stars who show off their “diamond chains” are in reality just made with cubic zirconia and fool’s gold (how fitting). That’s simply the reality of the internet. Too often we are told to “not trust everything you see on the internet,” but too often we simply choose to trust everything. This illusion that many people still cannot see through has its drastic, often deadly consequences.

It should not come as a surprise that suicide rates have spiked, 2016 having the highest suicide rate in over thirty years. The boys and girls of the internet simply are too addicted to seeing this placebo of perfection. They become dissatisfied with their own life, regardless if they have distress in their life. They become obsessed with attaining this level of beauty that doesn’t exist outside of the doctor’s office. Thus, they become depressed, wonder why they do not look like the person on their timeline, and end up with worse problems than they started out with.

Simply put, social media has become a disaster. If humans continue down this path, then the destruction will only intensify.