Are business-folk on LinkedIn as impressionable as teenagers on Instagram?
I can’t tell you how refreshing my LinkedIn feed has been on Mental Health Awareness Day 2018. Post after post of enlightened opinions.
Much has been written of late about Instagram and the negative effect it can have on young people. Immersing themselves into a world of carefully selected, scantily-clad selfies or airbrushed, filter-heavy close ups.
What, then, about LinkedIn? The platform is an amazing tool for connecting people around shared business interests but it’s also a feed of people trying to broadcast success. Arguably LinkedIn can be even more of an unnatural environment. Replace selfies with self-aggrandizing. Filters with fictitious job-titles. The result is something that makes LinkedIn a lot closer to Instagram than you might at first imagine.
In our professional lives, we’re mostly taught not to show weakness. Don’t show cracks in front of the sales director. Don’t look weak in front of the competition. Power handshakes (remember them?) None of this can be hugely healthy.
The truth is, that our careers aren’t that straight forward. Who hasn’t taken a wrong turn? Made a mistake? Suffered from self-doubt?
So, I do hope that my feed remains in the same vein as today. A bit more human. You don’t have to tell the world about your mistakes but be sure to remind yourself that much of the boastfulness that takes place on LinkedIn is as superficial as me trying to feign a six pack on a beach. And neither Instagram nor LinkedIn needs that.