What digital comparison is doing to your self-worth, and what to do about it.
- Vikki da Rocha
- Aug 8
- 6 min read
This week in Sydney, the rain has been relentless.
Heavy, grey skies pressing in, calling us to slow down. And we did. We didn't fight it. We let the TV stay on a little longer than usual. We stayed in our pyjamas longer than we should have (full disclosure, it was 3 pm by the time I showered!). We leaned into the slowness. I slowly cleaned the house over the weekend, cooked lasagna, and enjoyed a few glasses of red wine. It was cold, grey, but so warm and cosy inside. It felt good, comforting even. But still, beneath the quiet, I felt that familiar tug. That soft voice saying:
Is this enough? Shouldn't we be doing something more productive? Something more meaningful? It's probably why I truthy still cleaned, cooked and had wine to feel like I achieved more than the sofa claiming me!
It's a whisper so many of us hear.
We live in a world that has blurred the lines between presence and performance. A world that rewards the appearance of things over the felt experience of them. And nowhere does that show up more than in the lives we quietly compare ourselves to through the social scroll.
Last week, Amelia turned six.
She had clear ideas of what she wanted. Slime. Pass-the-parcel. A piñata. A proper six-year-old celebration, and as we started planning, the costs began to add up. Venues were limited. Guest lists needed trimming. So, we decided to keep it small, a little circle of her closest friends, which felt intentional and manageable.
The venue itself was drop-off-and-go, which meant the parents didn't stay. A few of the mums even went and had a glass of wine while we entertained the kids, and honestly, I loved that for them. What I appreciated even more was the relief I felt. I didn't have to host the adults. I didn't have to check if everyone was okay, offer drinks, or manage small talk while keeping the party running. I could be with Amelia. I could focus on the kids, on the fun, on the magic of what we'd planned.
For two hours, we did exactly that. The kids got messy with slime, squealed with excitement at the piñata, played pass-the-parcel with full-hearted joy and Jorge and I got stuck in. We played too. No one watching, no expectations to manage. Just presence.
If I'm being honest, there was a part of me, in the lead-up, that wanted to impress. That part of me that wanted it to look good, not just feel good. That voice that whispered, maybe we should've done more… invited more… added something extra… and when I sat with it, I realised how much of that wasn't mine. It was noise I'd absorbed. Expectations increased because of scrolling party ideas and the wonderful algorithm presenting me with party possibilities.
When we're constantly consuming other people's highlight reels, the perfect party photos, the colour-coordinated balloons, the hand-stitched costumes, digital comparison and self‑worth become intertwined and we end up feeling like we’re falling short. That distortion can quietly shape our choices; these curated moments do make me laugh sometimes.
A few weeks ago, I caught myself in a curated moment. Let me share the story…
It all started when we decided to take a spontaneous trip up to the Blue Mountains. We explored, popped in to visit some friends, and had one of those fun, unexpected days. On the way home, the moon was huge, full, bright, golden yellow, hanging low in the sky over the motorway. It took my breath away. I shouted out to Amelia, "Look at the moon!" But just as I did, the road dipped between trees and buildings, and the moon disappeared.
She'd been watching her iPad and hadn't seen it. So, what happened? I got frustrated. " Turn it off," I said. "Let's look for the moon!" She tried for a bit, but all we could see were trees and traffic. She lost interest, asked to go back to her show, but I was having none of it. I wanted this shared magical moment, this cinematic scene of us all in awe of the beauty of the moon, and that's when I caught myself.
I wasn't just trying to show her something beautiful. I was chasing a moment I'd already scripted in my head. In my mind, I'd imagined the whole car falling silent, awestruck by the wonder of the moon. Instead, I had a grumpy five-year-old wanting her iPad back and me with a crick in my neck and feeling slightly car sick, from scanning the skyline for that "perfect" view.
When we finally saw it again, she did pause. She looked up and said, "It's beautiful, mummy," and then, just like that, she was done. Back to her world, doing what she wanted to do, and I was left with a fleeting sliver of the movie moment I'd hoped for… and a very sore neck and queasy tummy.
It's such a small story, but it says so much.
We chase these idealised versions of reality, not always consciously, but often enough to miss the beauty of what's there. We hold ourselves to expectations that aren't even ours. We make meaning from other people's curated content and forget to check in with our own.
I was reminded of this again just this week, when I caught up with a friend recently, someone I hadn't seen in a long while. From the outside, from Instagram, her life looked joyful, abundant, and filled with exploring, unforgettable memories and holidays. But in our conversation, she shared the truth: her daughter had been unwell for months. They'd been in and out of the hospital, barely holding it together.
That moment hit me, because I'd had no idea what she was living through. I'd held an image of her life based only on what I'd seen online. Did I meticulously check her time and date stamps as I scrolled through? No. Which meant I hadn't seen it. It had been months since her last upbeat post and family holiday, and I assumed it had just happened. That's the thing: social media is rarely the whole story.
I turned to the research because I needed to understand more. And science backs up what we already feel deep down: social media can have a noticeable impact on our mental and emotional wellbeing. It's not just about distraction. It's about distortion.
At the heart of this is something called upward social comparison. It's a natural part of being human. We compare ourselves to others as a way to grow, to aim higher, to learn what might be possible for us. In its healthy form, it fuels motivation and vision.
The twisted fate of this in the digital age is that we're no longer comparing ourselves to the woman next door or our friend from work; we're comparing ourselves to highly curated, filtered, and incomplete versions of people's lives, and we're doing it daily. Sometimes hourly. We've gone from seeing real, lived examples to scrolling past polished content designed to show the best, hide the rest.
And this is why digital comparison and self-worth are so often in conflict.
That constant exposure to someone else's highlight reel shifts our perception of what's normal, what's achievable, and what's enough.
It's no wonder we end up feeling like we're falling short. The comparison itself isn't the problem; it's the fact that we're comparing our whole, messy, real lives to something that was never meant to be the entire story.
It invites comparison. It skews perception. It activates a subtle but persistent sense of not enough, and the truth is, most of us are still looking, wondering and wishing our lives away, all based on half the picture.
What do we do with that? I turned to my NLP toolbox, and I want to share a technique called Swish Pattern.
Don't get caught up in the name. It's not complicated. It's just a tool for interrupting those mental spirals and choosing something more useful instead.
Here's how you do it:
Notice the image or thought that makes you feel not good enough. That photo. That comment. That moment that triggered the comparison. See it in your mind. Be honest about how it makes you feel.
Now shrink it down. Mentally make it smaller. Less vivid. Blur it. Imagine dragging it off to the side, like closing a tab on your browser.
Bring in a different image, one from your life. Your child is laughing. A win at work. The giggle with a friend. The first sip of your morning coffee. Something genuine. Bring that image forward. Brighten it. Make it bigger. Let it fill the space.
Anchor there. Take a breath. Feel into that moment and lean into that image. This is not about pretending the comparison never existed; it's about choosing what you focus on next. You are training your mind to come back to you, to what matters.
You don't have to stop scrolling entirely. But you do need a way to reclaim your mind when it starts drifting.
When you do that, when you bring yourself back to what's real and meaningful, everything starts to soften and make sense again. You don't have to stop looking. But start choosing what you see. If you need something practical to help keep you there?
Set a scroll timer: 15 minutes max.
Don't start your morning with your phone.
Keep your phone out of your bedroom. We made that change this year, phones downstairs, sleep upstairs, and it's changed everything.
You already have what you need.
You already are who you need to be.
The trick is to remember and choose again.
With love & slime
Vikki x
