No, it's definitely not going away. In fact, it creeps into more and more aspects of our lives with each passing hour it seems, and unlike contrived images from the past, you only have to go as far as the tips of your fingers these days to be bombarded with it. I agree that we have to find our own ways of coping with social media. My way is to discontinue its use on certain platforms that I find most objectionable, and as is probably quite obvious here, sharing my thoughts on the matter when the subject comes up. When I was a "heavy user" of Facebook and IG, there was always something within me that knew deep down how much of an addict I'd become, and how much of what I was immersing myself in day in and day out was inauthentic, and it just left me feeling unsettled. When I was ready and willing to face up to that, my life changed for the better. Perhaps someone else needs to do some soul-searching as well, and if just one person decides to step back from the platform and take a good, hard assessment of it, then my sharing will not have been in vain. :-)

To that end, here's the thing that was my strongest impetus to move away from the use of social media. I know some of you here have seen it as well.

Stare Into The Lights My Pretties

I’m always amazed that some people seem to think “oh, I should be doing it that way” like on Instagram or even here. How many times do we see people say “oh, my kitchen isn’t the high-end expensive kitchen usually on here” when the reality is that maybe the Houzz-curated photos appear high-end, but most of the real kitchens are, well, normal. I put this in the same category as girls who think they need to look like Barbie dolls, or adults who think girls are harmed by Barbie’s unrealistic measurements. or people who think they need to look a certain way to get a significant other, because of what they see online or in media. Go to any office building, school, sports event, etc, where there are real people.

(as an aside on FB “likes”, I once liked one of a couple of comments on page that I follow, and another commenter asked why I didn’t ”like” her comment. Jeepers! I don’t look at that kind of thing! not even here on GW!)

As to organization/home decor, I learned how to fold a fitted sheet from Martha Stewart. I don’t have a perfectly made bed.

I learned how to tell when the pan is hot enough from Julia Child. I don’t cook French meals.

I learned a new way to fold lots of things (including an adaptation to my fitted sheets) from, I think, Jennifer Scott. But they aren’t fine French linens.

and a couple of things from Marie Kondo.

I’m solely responsible for the continued operation of The Container Store (or so my DH believes).

But really, I don’t obsess. I do what works for me, and discard the rest. I’m realistic: crayons break, stuff spills, other people get into “my stuff”.

I will confess that while I want my family to put their dishes in the dishwasher, I struggle with my desire to move things around in there to suit “my” loading method.

I‘m pretty good at SOB (Scroll On By) for a lot of things.

Are those oxo pop containers air tight. Do that anything will stay fresh even crackers.

This is the only blog I read and she's big on organizing. Take a look at her plate storage in the garage.

Between Naps on the Porch Ironically, I don't think I've read one story where Susan's had a dinner party.

BNOTP is a nice blog. To see her house click on Home Tours at the top, then click on My Nest. She does have a nicely organized closet. But you have to in order to take pictures. :) The money she spends on herself each week, well I'll just say, it must be nice! lol BTW, she's a fantastic lady.

Good grief Oakley, that is a lot of stuff! Sorry, but that person is a hoarder, a neat and clean one, but still a hoarder of stuff.

LOL Chispa! The rest of her house is normal and I'm pretty certain her blog makes a lot of money, hence buying all the plates for her tablescapes. But there comes a point where it might be wise to sell some of it. :)

I started watching that documentary, @IdaClaire. Thanks for sharing.

@bpath, I think the ability to scroll on by requires critical thinking when faced with information. Judging from the hyperbolic praise I see on 'lifestyle' IG posts, this type of maturity seems rare.

I don't recall if I've shared this here before, but this thread brought to my mind a young woman I followed on IG from my local area. It soon became apparent that she longed to BE one of the so-called "influencers", and her posts increasingly began to look more and more like those that are so ubiquitous -- staged "lifestyle" vignettes including the perfectly-dressed mama and daughter engaging in wholesome activities ... Ooooh, here they are baking cookies, and isn't it cute how little Sophia (not her real name) has that funny dot of flour right on the tip of her little turned-up nose!

It was obvious that this young woman was taking a lot of time and money, and going to great lengths to stage her photos to get "that certain look" -- but somehow, her pictures always just slightly missed the mark, and that made me feel so sad for her. To see how much she wanted to put herself forward as being "one of them", and not quite being able to attain that "height" -- well, there was just something heartbreaking about witnessing it all.

And this is one of the things that comes to my mind whenever I think of all that I find egregious in social media. I know so many people who claim that it's just an innocent way for them to "keep up" with friends and family, but there is most definitely a darker, insidious side to it that has crept in and is robbing people of their authentic lives. And to me, that's distressing.

That collection of table stuff completely overwhelms me! However, brilliant name for a blog. That would fit me to a T. I say all the time, our front porch sucks me in and I get nothing done. Putter around a bit, sit on the porch. More puttering, more porch sitting. Eventually turns into sitting on the porch with a beverage. :) lol

ETA also:

I tried to be one of those people for about a half a minute. My results were like Ida's story. No one wants to see my junk. And my house isn't white and clean or elegant.

I did do this:

Our Field of Dreams · More Info

Just b/c I wanted to. And guess what!!!?? Never actually used any of it.

We have TONS of "dinner parties" but we use paper plates and drink beer out of a can. ;-) LOL

What is that?! They look like boxes for storing things, like file boxes?

Imo it looks like a library with all the books covered. A fake one. Library wallpaper.

It's dystopian looking.

We had neighbors over last week - the first time they had been in our house (we had been "chat on the sidewalk" acquaintances for a couple of years).

It so happened that we were getting new carpet in our bedroom the next day, so all the bedroom furniture was shoe-horned into the living room. Clothes were piled on the couch. Boxes of stuff were on the floor in the dining room. The table was a disaster. DH had been canning salsa from our garden produce, and the kitchen was a mess. I figured it was a great time to show them around the house, since we had an excuse for the disarray!

I said "Our house doesn't always look this bad - but honestly, when we get the bedroom put back together, it isn't going to look a whole lot better, except we'll be able to sit on the couch!"

The neighbor said "Oh, this makes me feel so much better about my own house! It's a mess too!"

Real people have stuff that doesn't get put away. Real people have dog toys on the floor. Real people have dust. I was pleased to learn that our neighbors are real people too!

I'd cry to see an actual library like that. Curl up in a ball and cry. IdaClaire, you're reminding me why I stopped reading blogs a while back. They were all getting sponsored! So annoying.

I applaud those people who are financing their chosen lifestyle by becoming influencers or lifestyle vloggers. They are today's entrepreneurs. What I regret is that there are so many people who don't use critical thinking when perusing media of all sorts. I agree with IdaClaire that it's easy to fall into the trap of being inappropriately influenced.

On the other hand, I was taken aback when a vlogger I follow visited Paris, France recently for a day and felt they had seen all that needed to be seen. Instead, they wanted to get out into the French countryside which, while beautiful, is not that different from the countryside in a lot of other places. To add insult to injury, they mispronounced the name of the main river in Paris...badly. My appreciation for this vlogger certainly decreased following that vlog. I feel like they let their audience down by not doing at least the simplest level of research. I don't applaud ignorance stemming from lack of effort.

DH is a thriftstore hound, so today we visited two. The first store had, for example, all women's shortsleeve shirts, size medium, sorted BY COLOR. Well, by gum, how handy was that? Since I don't wear blue, red, yellow, etc. etc., it was pretty easy for me to look at all they had available for me. The other thriftstore did not sort by color. They did by size and sleeve length, but colors were higgledy-piggledy on the racks. Annoying, and I gave up looking.

So I guess there's something to be said for ultraorganization.

Whoa! I just visited the blog... can you imagine how much time is spent maintaining all that tableware?! Getting it out, arranging, putting away, cleaning, dusting... I’m exhausted just thinking about it. (It’s probably why she needs to nap on the porch!! Haha)

Also- have you ever been to meal where the host has done a tablescape like that? I have, for thanksgiving one year. It was stunning... but such a PITA to actually eat at. There was no room for anything, you constantly felt like you were going to knock something over. Someone did, and we ended up on hands and knees under the table scrubbing wine out of her rug.

It’s just not realistic! All the work for a few pics? And then what, you sit around and reminisce all your pretty holiday tables? Heck no. Not for me :)

Hope that tableware woman never has to move. Good grief.

Does she park cars in that garage where all of the tableware is stored? If so, then something about that just seems very odd to me. Then again, I've never thought of the garage as anything but a place for machinery. (Except I'll admit that we DO have an old fridge in ours that holds overflow from the kitchen fridge. But tableware? Nope.)

I can’t find it anymore, but surely some of you remember the Holidays forum on GW? There were some lovely table settings.

The most “stuff” I’ve ever seen on IG is an account called Turtle Creek Lane. She’s very enthusiastic about decorating for holidays and such.

(I’m not posting this to mock her ... to each their own. I wish I had her energy! I just thought it related well to the discussion — I can’t fathom how you’d store so much stuff.)

Oh. My. Gosh. TCL IG account is like Hobby Lobby on steroids! Does she store and reuse or is each holiday decorated differently each year? Looks more like she calls in professional decorators for the holidays.

I also wondered why she is storing dishes in the garage. :-/

DD1 likes to decorate for holidays and celebrations. I don't have anything like these bloggers, but I do have 12 Days of Christmas dessert plates and bought fall tableware last year. I don't just use it for the holidays, but the entire month/season/fall. If it doesn't fit in my kitchen, it doesn't get bought. I don't have the time or desire for storage hoarding. We always do buffet on the kitchen island, and eat in the breakfast area or dining room, so plenty of space on the tables for enjoyable dining. DD1 enjoys doing it, and I enjoy helping, but neither of us would stand a chance against the bloggers. LOL

I don’t know a lot about TCL, but from what I’ve read she does the decor mainly herself (I’m sure she has some help). A while back she talked about storing it all, but I can’t remember what she said. I’m thinking a big warehouse would be needed! She does reuse some of it, but adds more each year. She gives house tours sometimes ... I can imagine it’d be pretty wild in person!

I find it all overwhelming; it would give me anxiety issues. I love decorating for holidays, but have really pared down in the past few years.

Okay, I had to look at TCL. My teeth hurt. It’s an overload of sugary sweetness.

The TCL lady has Disney size decor in her home. I looked at her Easter photos. She has carrots the size of baseball bats hanging from her chandelier and rabbits the size of sumo wrestlers in her window. Where do you find decor that big? I think she deserves a spot on IG. Where else would you go to see decor like that, besides Disney? While her designs are not my cup of tea, I have to applaud her. It must take a lot of effort to do what she does. I would bet her kids love it.

OMG. TCL. I had to look too, and now I can't unsee it. And call me a negative, judgmental b-word if you want (you wouldn't be the first to do so), but reading this made me close the browser tab instantly: "Did you know that this Sunday is National Lemonade Day? If you are not familiar with what it is, here is a brief history ... "

Great gosh-almighty. I can't even.

ETA: Her IG account is precisely the sort of completely inauthentic drivel I referred to above. So many plastered-on, phony, "everybody look PRETTY now!" smiles, and EVERYTHING is shiny-shiny, happy-happy, joyful-joyful. I fully grasp the great need for positivity in this too-often dark world of ours, but some people swing it much too wide in one direction, and what emanates is something so saccharine (and we all know that stuff is fake, right?) as to make one's teeth ache. It personally makes me want to be depressingly goth in response.

I have discovered that I like organizing things by color a bit. When we had our board games out (when the kids were younger) I one day organized them by box color and felt much calmer. My books are by category, but within the category they are by color, which makes me feel calmer. Since I’m kind of visual, I find it easy to find things because I remember what color they are. I’m agonizing over a couple of book series I have, though. Right now they are ordered by publication date, but I’m yearning to do them by color, too, aargh.

DH files using binders, which I find works well for me, too. But he had all the labels in white with the same typeface. I asked him to color-code (e.g., green for finance). He did! That was hard for him, he really prefers the all-one color, so I appreciate his doing it for me. And now I can find the binder I need . . . And put it back where it belongs.

Oakley - that's a nice blog, thanks for posting it.

I don't find her tableware collection to be too much.

She obviously enjoys making her home beautiful and decorates her table seasonally for her family, I'll bet she's the one who hosts the holiday gatherings.

I believe LynnNM enjoys doing much the same thing for her family.

That TCL woman obviously doesn’t have cats. OMG. She can’t LIVE without glass jars??

I just went to the TCL website! My first thought... this woman must have SO MUCH ENERGY. I’m exhausted just thinking about all the work it must take to put up all those decorations and take them down constantly.

I won’t lie... I did browse her “shop Halloween” link and found a couple items I want to buy ;)

Oh sheesh, that TCL stuff is a nightmare to look at. Exactly the woman I avoid at all costs. What is it with southern women and the color pink? (And I’m from the south)

I went back to the TCL blog, trying to understand what it was precisely that caused a falling out with a friend when I was critical about the posts of a nearly identical IG "influencer". The things that bother me about these presentations of perfection seems to be exactly what attracts others to them. We each interpret the intent behind what we're seeing differently.

And with that said, I still find TCL to be one of the silliest and most humble-braggy I've ever seen, with the frequent insertion of the word "Giggle" into the narrative, and the fact that she feels it necessary to tell her readers whether the outfit she's modeling is a size 2 or a 0. She's vapid with a capital V.... (in my opinion, of course).

I’m enjoying this thread as well. And not to be a Debbie downer but I’d love it if people would use OCD in the correct context. Our youngest had it and it took a year of therapy to work through it. Let’s call it being ‘a neat freak’ or something like that. OCD has to do with extreme fears not the need for tidy.

We are still on vacation so I haven’t been keeping up with the conversations much. I did run across this book about a month ago and laughed out loud. Should have bought it.

thinkdesignlive, I apologize if I offended you with my use of OCD, but I did use it in the right context. Jeff Lewis is OCD. All three of our adult children have varying degrees of OCD (DS the worst), and so do I. For me, one thing is when things are not in order or a mess, it causes much distress. According to professionals, that qualifies as OCD. I won't get into describing their OCD habits or therapy, but I'm happy to her your daughter only took one year of therapy to work through hers.

I have ADHD and have struggled to varying degrees with organization issues throughout my life. Currently, my office makes me look like a hoarder. (It will get done just not now. :P) There's OCD in my family as well. I think many of us struggle with organizing our "stuff" which is why these types of IG pics bug me as they do. They make it all seem so simple when the hardest part of organizing (deciding on what to DO with stuff) is left out of the presentation. Many people see these pictures and think "Oh, so pretty! That's home nirvana." and it's NOT. (It IS pretty but it doesn't guarantee home nirvana.) I'm really trying to be critical (in the good sense of the word) and not judgmental by sharing these thoughts. Apologies if it didn't come across that way.

ETA: Thank you all for chiming in and thanks for sharing that book, @OutsidePlaying. I'll look for it at the library because it has the potential to hit my funny bone just right.

I read a sample from the book(thanks, @OutsidePlaying). It is hilarious and dead on! I ordered it, because a) it will make me laugh and b) maybe I will learn a little something. There is also a good interview of the author with Wired, that I found by googling, that others might enjoy. I am odd because while very organized in my cupboards and pantry, I always have clutter on the coffee table, in the foyer,etc; and my closet is a case of 10 lbs of stuff in a 5 lb bag.

I think that each person looks at things so differently that your organization needs to be tailored to your perspective.

I added the book to my library recommendations. Now, I hope the library buys it.

So sorry to hear about your families struggles with OCD Allison - it’s the worst. I wasn’t offended and I apologize if I offended anyone. My sister works for a professional organizing co and it has taught her to rethink her relationship to ‘stuff’. She sees so much excess and waste every day. Her company is swamped with business which actually makes me kinda sad.

Just saw this and skipped down because there are 112 comments.

I agree about the unrealistic(to put it mildly) expectations encouraged by such pretty photos. Geez - what average person has all that free time to sort everything, or the money to buy so much?

And FWIW, I actually have a larger set of those paper edger scissors I use in my arts & crafts classes. They come that way, all together, and each has a differently shaped edge.

Going back to read comments now...

Read and skimmed now and all I can add is that since the onset of commercial advertising as an industry, we've been plagued with such unrealistic expectations, selling us things by making us feel bad about ourselves. What are beauty magazines (and many others as well) but basically advertising platforms for manufacturers and service providers? I learned long ago that the primary purpose of TV shows and other mass entertainment in the USA is to make money from advertising

I definitely wish more magazines (and blogs) showed real life. Not all white on a farm or with boys, not tons of ridiculous stuff or expensive stuff, or even stuff just ridiculous to keep clean; how about real life? However, for the scissors in the pic, they may be scrapbooking scissors where each one cuts different. I had some when I scrapbooked. lol ;)

Honestly, I look at all those ads and think "boy, that is not real life." Because all I have to do is look around me, my friends, my community, and while we are a pretty decent bunch even best homes are not magazine-ready. When they do go in a magazine (and they do!) there's plenty of staging that goes on.

I will share a real life organization example :) I took the first pic because I was heading to the store and wanted a visual of the sizes/shapes of containers I would need. Then I ended up snapping the second pic when a friend and I were texting about home projects, and I joked that all I’ve done recently is organize my junk drawer!

@Anne I am odd because while very organized in my cupboards and pantry, I always have clutter on the coffee table, in the foyer,etc; and my closet is a case of 10 lbs of stuff in a 5 lb bag.

This is also me!! I'm currently planning to take EVERY thing out of my 5lb bag this weekend. It's just gotten to the point I can't handle it any more. I'm the one who my piles have piles, then I clean everything really well, put everything away, annnnnnnnnnnnnnnd then the piles have piles again.

I'm only consistent at inconsistency. :)

This is what happens when I tackle an organizing project. It takes days to recover.

I am similar with my clutter, @Lori Wagerman_Walker and @Anne. Quite good at organizing drawers and cupboards but terrible at picking up after myself. @Oakley, I finally started to tackle (and the term is apt) my "office" last week and moved everything out into the living room. You can't imagine the mess. (Marie Kondo's trick of putting all the books in one spot works really well for me.) Need to give myself a deadline for this big organization project because it could easily drag on and I'll be left with piles of random homeless stuff in the living room. @Kate E, your drawer looks great! Pat yourself on the back. :)

What's really helping me purge this time around is reading (library) books and watching YT videos on minimalism. I've also started reading an organization book that is a lot more profound that any other I've read on the matter: "It's Hard to Make a Difference When You Can't Find Your Keys" by Marilyn Paul. I heartily recommend it to anyone continually struggling with organization.

(Again, thank you to everyone who chimed in! I loved reading the different takes on this subject. Did my best to thank everyone for their comments but it looks as if some thank yous didn't register? Might be a site glitch.)

Days?! I would not be able to sleep!!!

It's a start, Kate E!

Thank you, thinkdesignlive.

Allison, that mess was put together...by midnight, and then I slept like a baby.

I was diagnosed a few years ago with Adult ADD (no Hyper for me) and it explained my
whole life. I'm a perfectionist by nature (Virgo), but I would make humongous messes when organizing. Still do but at least I get the messes cleaned sooner rather than later.

The book mentioned above sounds perfect! Anything anti-Marie Kondo is fine by me. IMO, she is definitely OCD. Allison, I do agree about being OCD regarding organization and messes.

After doing some organizing today I now have something that I bet NONE of you all have. Two empty drawers and no idea what to put in them!

Next to the washer there's a 16" W x 19" L drawer that's always been empty. As of today I alsohave a large sofa table drawer available for rent. I think I found about ten dog collars of all sizes in there. lol I also have some old dog collars in a drawer on the front porch. A great example of ADD. :)

Oakley, my DS20 started treatment for ADD/ADHD (his doctor says it’s all ADHD now?) and in talking with him about how it’s going, I’m starting to think I have it, as well. I have a friend whose ex is severely ADD and she thinks so, too. How were you diagnosed? I don’t feel like I can just walk into my son’s doctor and say “I think I have ADD, give me an Rx for Adderall”.