I Love Pinterest, It’s Ruining My Life.
Have we found one of the Holy Grails of creativity and, at the same time, the best example of doom scrolling? It’s the app we all know and love, Pinterest.
Is Pinterest ruining my life, and possibly my career? Maybe. Is that being a little melodramatic…? Yes.
The Advantages of Pinterest
Okay, so let me start by saying this; I really do love most aspects of Pinterest. It’s a creative platform at its core, sharing ideas and thoughts with a world-wide community. It’s visually rich in showing us things we love, and curates some of our favorite ideas on its main home screen, making it easy to discover new ideas. If you’re unsure if you would like the platform let me ask you these simple questions:
- Do you ever feel like you want to take on a creative project around your house, and instead of buying it outright or hiring someone, you want to Do It Yourself(DIY)?
- Have you ever saved a recipe you found online and wish it were in a collective area you could easily access it?
- Have you ever turned a food item into a cute character referencing the upcoming holidays?
- Do you ever need inspiration for a project of any kind, to help guide you in any steps or spark creativity?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then believe it or not, you are Pinterest’s target audience! And yes, you would definitely like Pinterest.
One of the biggest trends we’ve seen come out of Pinterest is the “DIY”, or do it yourself, era. From crafts to home making, there’s genuinely no limit to what you could do. Its search engine makes finding your next project as easy and simple as you need it to be. It’s organizational heaven for those that enjoy order in a chaotic social media world.
Just the other day, I decided that should I ever want to start quilting (random, I know, but it sounds like fun), I should know what tools I’ll need, who to look up to start at the basics, patterns I would need to follow to make certain designs, etc. So I created a “quilting board”! A board is a way to organize your “pins”, and make a collective place where you can organize your ideas. I have a recipe, home, design ideas, and other boards that I’ve added to, and now I have a quilting board!
Creators and the people contributing to Pinterest have really made it what it is today. I say all this, and have started with the pros of Pinterest because It doesn’t seem like there are many cons when looking just at the surface. But with anything, there is usually a side that is more dark, seedy and not discussed as much as it maybe should.
The Dark Side of Pinterest
It must take a lot of time and effort to do what some social media content creators do. Take a perfect section of their lives and curate it to look a certain way on our feeds. Then repeat the process over and over again to showcase something that we want to see, and mirror ourselves. But… We can’t quite live up to the standard we’re seeing, can we?
The impossible standards set by Pinterest aren’t immediately visible when we open the app. We may think to ourselves, “oh cool, I love this outfit, and the way this person looks in it.” What we’re not seeing though, is the lighting they set themselves in, the editing, the time they spent on that certain outfit, to get the look that they do. So we fall into the hole again, without maybe even realizing it. Why don’t I look that way in a similar outfit? Am I doing something wrong? Am I not stylish enough? If it seems silly now, then you may just be lucky enough to not have slipped down that hole of questioning ourselves and what is, or is not, wrong with us.
This is what happens a lot to creators (in a different sense than social media creators, but I’m sure it happens to them as well) who are trying to express themselves creatively, and may look to Pinterest to spark that imagination. I have a designated Pinterest board that is full of design ideas that I would love to try. A certain technique I would like to try out in my own style, or a certain idea that something I see that sparked an image in my mind and gets me excited to try something new out.
The flip side of the coin though, is that it leads me to that hole and beckons me to jump in when I can’t quite replicate what I see. Why can’t I seem to draw how they do?? What’s wrong with me, am I good enough, etc. This is doom scrolling at its finest, and though it isn’t how Pinterest-or any social media- is marketed, they benefit greatly from it. It brings in views, clicks, ad revenue, and more. It is the stale bread and rancid butter of the online world. It brings in money, but at what cost? Are we doomed to scroll endlessly forever, lining the pockets of those we admire most but can’t hope to achieve?
Of course I don’t believe it’s as bad as I may be making it sound. But it does have the ability to escalate and hurt our progress more than enhance it. Maybe we just need to know that we are in control of our own destiny… or at least our screen time.
The Solution
Consuming vs. creating, the ultimate internal battle we all face. There’s nothing that stops us from doing, or being what we want to be. I believe if we have a passion for something we can become proficient in it to a certain level. If you love baking, there is nothing stopping you from becoming great at it. Does it fill your heart? Then go for it. Pinterest, at its core, should be something that is an asset to us.
If you’ve found yourself unable to break away from that hole of despair that can come with searching Pinterest for inspiration, fear not. You CAN beat the cycle. I’ve never been very good at setting time limits for myself, so I wouldn’t be very helpful in suggesting setting a timer for how long you can be on Pinterest, but I do think it can be helpful to switch your mindset before going in. What am I here to do? Do I want to focus on a specific interest this time, and if so, what am I looking for? Questions like these can possibly help with our social media usage in general.
Use Pinterest for good, and know you, and your snowman shaped rice crispy treats are enough. If something looks perfect on social media, there is a reason for it. That person has probably put a lot of time into getting that post up and running and looking the way it does, which is great for them! But, unrealistic for most. I get into the mindset sometimes where I am so unhappy with what I’m creating, and wishing it looked a certain way, before I have to remind myself it’s part of the journey of getting to where I want to be, there’s no rush. Right?
Be creative, and let yourself enjoy doing it. Scroll when you want to find some inspiration from others. This week even, find a project, recipe, or DIY craft that will make you happy! Pinterest can spark ideas, but it’s your creativity that brings them to life.
As always,
You’re a Gem!