LinkedIn: The New Instagram

How LinkedIn Became Another Platform for Comparison — and How Students Can Reclaim It.

Instagram has forever been the social media platform you find yourself addictedly, endlessly scrolling on — only momentarily pausing at the posts you wish could have been on your own grid. The body you’ve been working toward. Your dream travel destination since you were 10. The couple so in love that you can’t help but grab the pillow next to you, supplementing it for some subpar man.

Instagram is for showing off the bits and pieces of our lives that we feel are aesthetically worthy of everyone else's eyes. It’s a platform where, yes, we get to post the absolute cutest photo dumps and those solo photos our friends begged for the world to see — but it’s also a space filled to the brim with half empty. 

Without the “candid” photoshoots with friends and short, witty captions, what is Instagram? It’s LinkedIn on paid time off. 

“I think that both platforms can lead me to feel like I’m 'not doing enough' in various aspects of my life,” said Renée Kurie, SU senior majoring in Advertising and Spanish. “On Instagram, I feel this way about my lifestyle, daily habits and physical appearance, whereas on LinkedIn, it’s more about internships, careers and what I can be doing as a student.”

As I’ve grown older amidst my college years, I’ve noticed a shift in my values, or rather, my worries. I, along with a lot of college students, revolve almost everything around the next steps career-wise. We are told around senior year of high school that LinkedIn is our way “in” to our aspiring fields. 

While that may be true, as the platform connects like-minded users for networking, LinkedIn is also a gateway to comparison. Only this time, we aren’t zooming into pictures hoping we find a photoshop slip-up. We are dissecting fellow students' successes, putting their ‘bits and pieces' side by side with our own. 

“I have compared my accomplishments to others, specifically my connections,” said William Alcorn, SU senior majoring in Applied Data Analytics and International Relations. 

THE 500+ CONNECTIONS MILESTONE

Much like Instagram, our followers — or rather connections — act as signals of success. The 500+ mark, for some reason, solidifies some hope for the future: professional us. Just as our Instagram followers might make us feel a little more popular, it seems as though college-aged LinkedIn users view their connections as factors in the probability of everything going their way. The reality: half of my connections are friends and CEO’s that I hope notice me. The other half are semi-recognizable faces on campus and people I will never meet. LinkedIn has turned into a numbers game, forcing people with true potential to compare not only their follower count but their worth to everyone else. 

“I joined LinkedIn recently, and it feels like a necessity to send an invite to every single name I recognize, even if I haven’t spoken to them in over five years,” said Joseph Casario, senior at John Jay College. “The more connections I have, the better it looks, and the more potential an employer may see in me. It feels like my value as a candidate is almost summed up by a number on a screen.” 

This is just one of many recognizable bad habits stemming from the more “fun” types of social media — and it's a problem. We easily fail to realize that substance and experience must take priority over that 500+ follower count. The number of people viewing your content is not a representation of your attraction, whether that be in the office or out. 

“It falls on individuals to understand their role, their path and their goals, but that is harder said than done,” said Alcorn. 

After all, no amount of connections in the world will get you where you want to go if your high school babysitting gig is still on your résumé. By putting yourself out there and aligning what you do with who you want to become, you’ll make more genuine connections in the real world, which will likely transfer to LinkedIn anyway.

“WITH SO MANY BIG FISH DOMINATING THE PLATFORM, THE LITTLE FISH FEEL IT'S HARDER TO SWIM.”

Though it’s great to have a place to engage with prospects, post our accomplishments (and get that much-needed validation), and see those we support reach new heights, when you’re on the other side of the screen, some pessimism is bound to flicker from within. 

“The mission of LinkedIn is simple: connect the world's professionals to make them more productive and successful,”reads their website. 

“I follow lots of people in a variety of industries and roles,” said Kurie. “Seeing all of that content makes me hyperaware of all the directions I could go into, making me feel overwhelmed and even a little doubtful in myself and the path I have decided to take.”

THE BIG QUESTION: DOES ENTERING YOUR COLLEGE YEARS MEAN ENTERING A SILENT COMPETITION YOU’LL ALWAYS FEEL LIKE YOU'RE LOSING? 

“While on the app, I try to celebrate my friends' achievements, but it's almost impossible not to question, compare yourself or wonder what you could have done to be in their shoes,” said Lara Villavicencio, SU senior majoring in Business Analytics and Economics.“LinkedIn has reached a point where it no longer feels like the professional platform it was intended to be — but just another social media app.”

Seeing others do well should not be a reflection of our own inadequacy. But a lot of the time, we feel the sting of the teary eyes of self-doubt stare right back at us.

We begin to question what more we could have done to get the position that a mutual we haven’t met posted about. We get jealous of the opportunities given to those we can’t relate to. We look at our majors and wonder if we should've chosen with our heads, not our hearts. We think of all we haven’t done and all we are not; meanwhile, the platform’s purpose is to highlight what its users offer and what they will do.

“These comparisons have been both positive and negative. Some have shown me paths, given [me] ideas or even allowed me to network, allowing me to land exciting roles,” said Alcorn. “On the other hand, everyone is writing their own book; a Supply Chain major has no business comparing their place on the corporate ladder to an Exercise Science or Broadcasting student. LinkedIn has allowed these separate sectors to overlap, allowing comparison to sneak through.”

It has been ingrained in our minds that success looks like a high-paying job and tailored pantsuits, and the majority of LinkedIn's content perpetually reinforces this narrative. Yet, realistically, success is subjective; it is a personal construct that can only be defined by values and objectives rooted in experience.

SO, HOW DO WE BREAK THIS BAD HABIT? 

First, we need to know our limits. In the same vein as other social platforms, there is no benefit in doomscrolling — especially on LinkedIn, unless you purposely want to make yourself feel useless. As a collective, we need to use the app as a pep in our career steps and stop stumbling over others’ footprints. 

Though LinkedIn can be stressful, Kurie tries to focus on the positives. “I follow lots of creatives and employees of my favorite brands,” said Kurie. “Sometimes, I encounter a brand’s advertising and later see that someone I follow on LinkedIn worked on that campaign. It makes me excited to enter the advertising industry and [for] what’s to come with the projects I’ll eventually be working on.” 

Second, we should understand that, just like every other social media, no one is going to post the parts of their lives that seem monotonous. There's a pervasive tendency on social media to present an edited version of oneself, cutting out the bad days and filtering the good. 

“What keeps me from spiraling into a never-ending mental battle of 'why couldn't I land that internship' or feeling behind in my professional path is remembering that just like every other social media app, LinkedIn is a highlight reel of only ups, not downs,” said Villavicencio.