Social media is destroying how people see family and love.

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Welcome to the Tanya Gazelle podcast.

[00:00:02]And today I really want to talk about the expectations versus the reality of social media, but also what that's doing to to families right now. So I want to talk about what I think is a big root of so much of what's breaking down families right now. Of course, I think that this is a 50-year plus in the making epidemic. Um, but there's something that's really amplifying it. Okay? Okay.

[00:00:28]And I want to talk specifically, of course, to the parents first listening who has an adult child, who has pulled away because I know what it could feel like to wake up in a house that used to be loud, is now quiet, used to get phone calls, now you have nothing. It's like, and then it feel what it also feels like to be able to scroll through your phone and see what other families together look like, right? The laughing, the hugging, they're posting Mother's Day tributes and birthdays. and to feel like that that ache in your chest that you can't even fully describe and then to wonder what did I do? What did I miss?

[00:01:06]Why is this happening to me? I thought I did the best that I could. I did everything. I gave up. I worked two jobs. I was a single mom. Like there's so many different scenarios. And before we get into the psychology of what I want to share with you today, I want you to hear me when I say that the version of family that you're seeing online is not the version of family that actually exists in real life. And that goes for the adult children, too. The version of family that they're seeing online or hearing about online does not exist in real life. None of it is real. And the comparison that so many are making between your family and and others, that's hurting, especially when theirs looks so perfect.

[00:01:46]It's one of the most painful and yet the most unfair comparisons you could ever make for yourself because you're comparing your full complicated, real, broken, open story to a 30- secondond clip or a one minute clip that someone filmed and edited and posted online. And this is where I really want parents to hear me. So much of what your child is using to interpret you right now, the words, the labels, the frameworks, the certainty that they have about who you were as a parent. A big part of that came from the same place from a curated, filtered, algorithmfed and led world that has been quietly telling them what a healthy parent should have looked like or what real life should actually have felt like, what their childhood should have been like, and then measured against a fantasy that every parent fails. Yours did, you did, I did, mine did. Every parent fails because the standard is not a real standard. It's a script. And the script wasn't written by someone who actually loves your child. It was written by an algorithm that profits.

[00:02:54]When your child feels wounded enough to keep scrolling for the next video that explains why and validates their feelings and makes it so that their feelings are facts, which I'm going to talk about another episode about, you know, Carl Rogers and how the person- centered therapy came up and all of that, but I want to back this up a little bit with with psychology because I think when we really understand what's actually happening in the brain, we stop blaming ourselves. And that's not to say that accountability is needed, of course, because I think we always have to be able to have some kind of personal accountability. Look ourselves in the mirror and say, "What work do I need to do? How can I be a better person overall?" However, it's not just about blaming ourselves. We have to start seeing the system. And there's a researcher um called Leon Feninger, and I could totally be um jeopardizing his name, but Fen or Festinger, whatever. um way back in the 50s 1950s he came up with something called the social comparison theory I'd like to say social comparison trap however the basic idea is that we humans we figure out who we are partly by comparing ourselves to other people we need a reference point so in a way it's actually healthy and if we look around we we naturally ask am I doing okay is my life where it should be was my childhood normal and he said that this is a fundamental mental human drive and we can't help it. We're wired for it. And yes, of course, to an extent that makes sense. But here's the thing, because this is the part that nobody is openly talking about or even referencing is in 1950 your reference points were your neighbors, maybe a co-orker, maybe your cousins, 8 to 10 people, maybe 11, 12 people max. And those people had lives similar to yours, right? The plumber compared himself to other plumbers. Um, the mom compared herself to the other moms in the neighborhood, especially when it was a village who raised each other with each other.

[00:04:50]But today, your reference point is 5,000 plus strangers, celebrities plus influencers, plus an an AI couple that doesn't even exist outside of Tik Tok.

[00:05:03]And then every single one of those reference points is showing you the absolute peak moment in their life, if that even exists. It's edited. it's filtered. You know, three takes that you didn't see a caption that's written by AI or a copyright or whatever it is. And now you're comparing you're behind the scenes to everyone's highlight and that's been said before, but nobody's talking about it. I don't think we've actually let what comes to us land. So, I really want to show you what that means. Okay.

[00:05:34]There's another uh concept. It's called the contrast effect. Your brain does not evaluate things in absolute terms. It evaluates them by comparison.

[00:05:46]So if I were to show you a perfectly normal apple, you're going to think that's a fine apple. But if I showed you a magazine cover apple first, it's perfect. It's polished. It's shiny. It's got the perfect lightning uh lighting. And then I show you this normal one. Suddenly that normal one doesn't look so great.

[00:06:05]Maybe even looks gross. It looks wilted.

[00:06:07]looks a little bit disappointing, but the apple didn't change. Your reference point did. And I just want you to sit with that for a minute because that's what's happening to you in your child's eyes. They're not looking at you clearly anymore. They're looking at you next to a fantasy mother, a fantasy father, a fantasy childhood that they've been fed in these 15-second clips for years, or in these therapy rooms that are learning this language and all of that. And then next to that fantasy, you don't measure up. Of course, you don't. No relationship can stand that. Nobody does. The fantasy parent never raised her voice, never had a bad day, never had her own wounds, never made a single mistake, knew every single emotional need that the child needed. The fantasy parent doesn't exist.

[00:07:00]But your child's nervous system has absorbed thousands of these images and this language from classrooms to algorithms on social media to therapy rooms to all of it. And somewhere along the way, the fantasy parent became the standard. And then you became the disappointment. You became the failure.

[00:07:21]You became the reason for all of their pain. Because it's a comparison, that contrast effect, this comparison theory of this is what it should be when that should be is not realistic.

[00:07:33]And this is why so many adult children right now are looking back at their childhood through a lens that feels like it's clarity, but it's also completely filtered. The mother who wasn't perfect, who had her own wounds, who was doing the best that she can with what she had.

[00:07:47]Through the filter, she becomes controlling. The father who was emotionally unavailable in those moments or some moments, but absolutely showed up in others, through the filter, he becomes neglectful.

[00:07:59]The arguments that were just normal family friction, raising your voice, arguing, getting really upset, going upstairs, slamming the door, being triggered, every family has them. Every single one. But through the filter, all of a sudden it becomes trauma. And when you're learning that word, everyone kind of gets stuck to that. And once that filter goes on, it's almost impossible to take off. However, there's ways to shift it. And this is why I'm here. This is why I do what I do. Because everything that they remember now is getting sorted through that new category. So, how do you start changing it? They're not remembering their childhood anymore. They're remembering a story about their childhood. And the story is being written in real time by an algorithm, a social media platform that profits when they are wounded, when they stay in that victimhood.

[00:08:45]But I want to say this to the parents, you are not crazy. You are actually a different parent than the one that's being described about you. the version of you and your child's story right now, the controlling one, the toxic one, the narcissistic one, the gaslighting one, whatever label has been applied, that version is not the full truth. That version is a filter. And the reason why it's so painful is because you can feel that you've been misread. And there's nothing that you can say to argue your way out of it. Because if you try to defend yourself, the filter just, you know, folds the defense into more evidence. See, they can't even take accountability. So you sit there in this impossible position holding the truth of who you actually were and watching your child relate to a version of you that doesn't exist. Once again, that doesn't mean that there's not some accountability, that we do make mistakes, that we have an opportunity to learn, but it's bigger than that. So I want you to know because this is where the hope is. The way out is not by arguing with the filter. The way out is by becoming so consistent and so calm and so steady over time that the lens starts to stop fitting this filter. So the new version of you, the regulated version, the grounded version, the one who doesn't panic text doesn't hold on to the rage and the anger and the overexlaining and doesn't try to overcompensate, doesn't fight the narrative. That version starts to stop matching the old story. Eventually, sometimes it's weeks, months, years later, the story has to update. It's got to change. It doesn't fit the narrative because the brain can only hold a contradiction for so long before something has to give. That's the work.

[00:10:29]And it's slower. It's sometimes incredibly brutal, but it's the only thing that actually works. Okay? And I just want to widen this though quickly for you because what I'm describing isn't just happening between parents and adult children. It's happening everywhere. It's happening in marriages.

[00:10:44]It's happening between siblings. It's happening between friends. The same algorithm that's reframing your child's memory of their childhood is also reframing your wife's memory of your marriage, your sister's memory of your family, your best friend's memory of who you've, you know, your you've been to her for 20 plus years. That filter does not discriminate. It applies to anyone that the brain has stored as a close relationship. And then every time you scroll, the filter gets stronger and stronger. Okay? So, if I were to get really practical about how this practical about how this looks in marriage, I don't want to get too far into it, but I just want to really help conceptualize this because I see this destroy marriages all the time.

[00:11:23]Let's just say your husband forgets your birthday or he doesn't forget. He just got you a card and made you a dinner or took you out to dinner and got you a card. And in any normal era of human history, that's a that's a pretty good birthday. That's a that's a pretty normal birthday. But on your phone, you've watched 15 women open um these stage surprise rooms full of roses, a trip to ballet this week alone. So instead of feeling loved, you start to feel like you're not getting enough.

[00:11:47]Almost like it's an insult. You feel like you got less than what you deserve.

[00:11:51]And then you start telling yourself a story. He doesn't love me enough. He's not putting in enough effort. Other men do this for their wives. Why doesn't he do that for me? And then the next morning, you're bitter. You're cold.

[00:12:02]Maybe you're resentful. He doesn't know why. He thinks he had a nice night. You think he failed a test he didn't know he was taking. And that crack in the marriage, that crack did not come from your husband. It came from the algorithm, the unrealistic expectations, the comparison theory, all of that. And I really want you to hear that because most people are blaming the wrong person for the disappointment that they feel.

[00:12:24]And I see this happening with families and holidays. every Christmas now. You could pull out your phone and watch thousand picture perfect family moments, the matching pajamas, the handwritten letters, the grandparents who flew in, whatever it is. It's it's it's not normal, right? You let's be realistic. So, when it's actual Christmas happens, your family is probably on the phone, your dad's on his phone, your kids are fighting over an iPad or the TV, um the food didn't turn out how you expected, you forgot a couple of things. It's it's a regular family Christmas. It's a regular holiday. You have a failure. You have evidence that your family is broken. Now, this is what social media makes you think that other families are doing it right. Why can't your family get it right? Families on social media are not actually doing it right. They're doing it for the camera. They had a fight in the car probably on the way to that photo shoot. The mom who looks like she has it all together could be on anti-depressants that she doesn't even talk about. The couple doing the meth matching outfits are in couple therapy.

[00:13:27]The girl with the perfect proposal has been crying about her relationship for the last six months or maybe he's cheating on her. We don't know. We don't know any of that.

[00:13:37]But knowing doesn't override what your nervous system is absorbing thousands of times a day. Your brain treats those images like data. It builds a model of reality from them and then it judges your real life against that model. And the verdict, the outcome, the conclusion is always the exact same. You're not doing enough. They're not doing enough.

[00:13:55]Your parents are not enough. They're not enough. Everything. Nothing is enough.

[00:14:01]And I'm not trying to dismiss real problems here. Yes, some families have real wounds. Some marriages have real problems. Some estrangements are happening from genuine danger and fear.

[00:14:13]I'm not talking about those. I'm talking about the ones that are workable, salvageable, that are pretty good and hon to to an honest standard when you compare it to an honest standard.

[00:14:25]I'm talking about the families that had normal levels of dysfunction that every single family has. But the adult child started seeing every memory through the lens of 15 Tik Tok therapists telling them their parents were narcissistic.

[00:14:38]I'm talking about people throwing away real imperfect deep human love because they got handed a script that said that they the love that they received should have been different. It shouldn't. Real love does not feel like that. Real love is boring sometimes. It's triggering sometimes. It's annoying sometimes. It's incredibly infuriating sometimes. That's the thing.

[00:15:01]But we've been taught to mistake that with reality. We can leave a person who have stayed with us forever.

[00:15:09]Okay. And I want to bring in something that I think a lot about in in in my work and what I do, which is what I call the expectation drift.

[00:15:19]Every hour that you spend on social media, your brain is being taught what to expect from your real life.

[00:15:30]Now, parents, I want you to hear this because this is going to help you see the lens from your child. Every hour you're either voting for staying calibrated to your real life or you're voting for the algorithm to set your expectations. There's no neutral. You don't get to scroll for two hours a day and not have your standards reshaped.

[00:15:46]That's how the brain works. This is why it could be a dangerous place when you're coming from a place as a consumer on social media. The brain absorbs what it's exposed to. If you're exposed to it for hours a day to a world that doesn't exist, your nervous system is going to start treating that fake world as the baseline. And then your real real world feels like a deficit. You feel like you're lacking.

[00:16:07]To the adult children who are listening, there are some of you because I know that arangement conversations get listened to from both sides. And I want to invite you to really ask yourself a question. How much of what I think about my parents is actually am I actually remembering? How much of it has been recently re or how much of it has recently been nar rearrated by content I've been consuming?

[00:16:31]by people that are validating my feelings because the brain doesn't really know the difference. The brain just knows what story has repeated the most.

[00:16:39]If you've even spent two years on TikTok being told that any uncomfortable feeling in your childhood was abuse, your brain is rewriting your childhood.

[00:16:46]That doesn't mean that your pain is not real. That doesn't mean that there wasn't childhood wounds. Your pain is real. But the explanation for the pain, the framework you're using to understand it and that you're applying, that is where it's not always real. And they're not going to tell you the full truth on social media.

[00:17:06]And this is why I always bring it back to God and to faith. This is the part where it has to come in. The algorithm has no interest in your peace. The algorithm has no interest in your family. The algorithm has no interest in whether you could sit on a couch with your mom on a Sunday and feel okay. The algorithm wants you wants you scrolling.

[00:17:23]It wants you on the app longer. That's it. That's the whole goal. And the things in your life that are actually good content, that are feel-good moments. That makes a good life. And every one of us has to choose every single day whether you're going to live for the content and put unrealistic expectations on yourself or you're going to live for the real life and enjoy the relationships and enjoy the family and enjoy the the relationships and everything else that you have.

[00:17:51]So, if there's one thing that I could say that I'd want you to do this week, just one, I want you to put your phone down for 30 minutes during a normal moment with someone that you love, whether a car ride, you're sitting on the couch, I want you to just notice them. No comparison, no composing the perfect picture, no rating the experience. I want you to just be in it and see what happens.

[00:18:11]Because I will tell you in the work that I do helping parents and families reconnect, the breakthrough almost never happens through some big conversation.

[00:18:22]It happens in the small, ordinary, undocumented moments where two people can just exist together without an audience, without unrealistic expectations.

[00:18:31]That's where the repair starts. When you remember who these people actually are to you, underneath all the stories that have been told about them, and to the parent who's hurting right now, who's been comparing your family maybe to something that is never going to be, I want you to hear me that the disappointment that you're feeling, the pain that you're feeling, a lot of it is not coming from your life. A lot of it is coming from your phone. Same thing for that adult child. And there's good news because you can do something about that. You can recalibrate. you can get your expectations back to something about that.

[00:19:04]Notice the success stories that I share.

[00:19:07]It's okay to be hopeful and you should be hopeful because God is great. But do not measure yourself against a fantasy mother or family that does not exist. So many of you before I started talking about this topic really felt that you were alone in this until I brought light to it.

[00:19:24]And you felt like you were alone.

[00:19:25]because you felt you were alone, you were comparing yourself to a fantasy parent. That does not exist, right? The shame, the self-lame, the constant feeling of not being enough. And then you notice, wait, I'm not the only one.

[00:19:36]And this is the reality. I'm trying to bring this back to you because no one's life is perfect. No relationship is perfect. No family is perfect.

[00:19:46]And I want you to start noticing the comparison trap. Adult children, parents, family, couples, all of it. Notice where this comparison trap is coming from. Notice the gap between the life on your on on a screen and the life that you're actually living and start setting those realistic expectations in a way that makes you feel good. And say, "Yes, I'm dealing with family dysfunction.

[00:20:13]Yes, I'm dealing with the hardship, but this is not the end. This is actually very normal, and I need to stop comparing it to an unrealistic expectation. And I need to better understand this situation. I need to better understand myself. And I need to help myself become the better, healthier, happier version of myself so I can better navigate this world of social media.

[00:20:38]So, if you're enjoying this, I'd love for you to subscribe to my channel, you guys. I've got plenty of other videos, lots of topics, incredible people that I'm going to be collaborating and bringing on the show in the near future.

[00:20:49]So, thank you so much for listening to Tanya Talks and God bless.