The Case Against Sharing Your Epic Vacation Photos on Social Media

Entrepreneur: 

We all have at least one of those friends (some of us are those friends), the kind whose Facebook/Instagram/Twitter feed is used exclusively to post photos and captions documenting how insanely epic life is: Here I am waltzing on a beach in St. Tropez! Here I am eating truffle shavings at a five-star restaurant in Tuscany! Wait, here I am right after getting a major promotion!

Psychologically, it makes sense that many of us use social media to broadcast all the awesome stuff going on in our lives. As humans, we crave talking about ourselves — about 40 percent of what comes out of our mouths is devoted to telling others about our thoughts and feelings — and it’s way more satisfying to showcase the exhilarating moments than it is the countless mundane ones. (Researchers have found that bragging activates the same feeling of pleasure in the brain as money and food.)

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That said, a recent study in Psychological Science suggests that when it comes to sharing your thrilling, exclusive experiences on social media, it’s perhaps better to…well, just not to.

Read the whole story: Entrepreneur