Your brain compares because there's no yardstick
You can't tell out of thin air whether you're coping. There's no thermometer that says "normal pace," "normal mother," "normal professional." In 1954, psychologist Leon Festinger proposed a simple idea: where no objective measure exists, people use other people as the measure. Since then, it has been one of the most enduring ideas in social psychology.
On its own, this isn't poison. Comparing yourself with someone who can already do what you're learning works as a guide: if they did it, there must be a path. But the same mechanism flips as soon as the person across from you starts to seem like someone made of different stuff. Then their success stops being proof that it's possible and becomes proof that you're not enough.
It's not about the other person, but whether you see their path as possible for you. The very same achievement can give you strength or take it away, depending on where you place it on this scale.
Why social media breaks this yardstick
You saw your neighbor as a whole person: her good week and the one when she didn't leave the house. Your feed shows only peaks - and not for one person, but hundreds at once. You compare your ordinary Tuesday with the best day of every person you know. The ratio below is an illustration, not statistics.
Out of 10 people you know, 2 had a good day - and they're the ones who'll appear in your feed
That's where the feeling comes from that you're the only one falling behind. The other 8, whose day was ordinary or hard, simply didn't post anything. You're comparing yourself not with people, but with their display window - and you lose by definition, because you know all of your own behind-the-scenes.
How hard this hits self-esteem is a case where it's more honest to say "it's not entirely clear." Links between time on social media, comparison, and low mood are found regularly, but they're mostly correlational: we don't know whether the feed worsens your mood or whether you scroll longer when you're feeling bad. Experiments do find an effect, but it's small and not for everyone - the evidence is of moderate strength, so treat it as a direction, not a precise measurement.
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Sources
- Leon Festinger, "A Theory of Social Comparison Processes," Human Relations, 1954
- review of the link between social media and well-being: Verduyn et al., Social Issues and Policy Review, 2017