Easily influenced

One of the worst aspects of social media is that it pushes how brilliantly everyone else is doing right in your face. It used to be that we just had to endure it annually, when we got the Christmas newsletter.

(As for running into people in person, well, there was always the look in the eye, the body language, that betrayed the “it’s all going swimmingly” reportage.)

Sure, people do share the tough times on social media. But apparently it’s the up times that are getting folks down. Millennial folks, that is. And all sorts of groups – all sorts of financial services firms, that is - are surveying them to see what’s up. Allianz Life is one of them.

Social media also makes 61% of millennials (versus just 35% of Gen Xers and 12% of boomers) feel inadequate about their own life and what they have, with 88% comparing themselves to others on social media (compared to just 71% of Gen Xers and 54% of boomers who say the same), according to the Allianz data. (Source: Zero Hedge)

Sure, who among us hasn’t at one point or another looked longingly at what someone else has: wealth, health, glitz houses, glam vacations, sweetie pie grandkids, cool clothing, professional achievements, adorbs doggos. But most of us get over it and are content with what we have.

The theme song (accompanied by Big Brother on the ukulele) of a kiddie show of my childhood – Big Brother Bob Emery’s Small Fry Club – is one that every Baby Boomer who grew up in the Boston area knows by heart:

Now the grass is always greener
In the other fellow’s yard
The little road, that we have to how
Oh boy, that’s hard
But if we all could wear green glasses
It wouldn’t be so hard
To see how green that grass is
In our own back yard

(You can check out a very early – and longer- version of the song here.)

If only these millennials had grown up with more Big Brother Bob Emery and less social media, they might not feel so awful about themselves. And while I might make fun, I do find it quite distressing that the young folks are feeling so inadequate.

Worse yet, these feelings of inadequacy are driving some pretty lousy spending habits:

According to a new survey by Charles Schwab, almost half of millennials (49%) say their spending habits are driven by their friends bragging about their purchases on social media vs. around one-third of Americans in general. 

And two-thirds of those millennials, according to yet another finserv survey – this one from Fidelity – believe that “social media has a negative impact on their financial well-being.”

And they’re influenced by influencers:

…a 2018 survey from Allianz Life shows that more than half of millennials (57%, versus just 28% of Gen Xers and 7% of boomers) say they’ve spent money they hadn’t planned to because of something they saw on social media.

It isn’t that I’ve never been influenced to buy something because my peers had it.

In eighth grade, I somehow convinced my parents to buy me a bright red windbreaker for Christmas. I craved it mostly because a lot of the girls in my class had one. The first one to show up in one was, I believe, my friend Kathy Shea. An influencer before we knew such things existed, Kathy was smart, pretty, funny, kind, a leader, and, in eighth grade, nearly six-feet tall. If Kathy Shea had a red windbreaker, well, who in her right mind wouldn’t want one.

Except during the bitter cold weather, I wore that thin windbreaker with a sweater under it. I remember shivering in the school yard. But, damnit, I had that windbreaker!

In high school, I coveted anything with a Villager label in it. Even the sweaters I got in Filene’s Basement (for three bucks) with IRREGULAR stamped through the label. What was most irregular about them was the colors. Khaki, pale orange – the sweaters available for three bucks were never anything that looked good on me. But I was swayed by the high school influencers, the ritzy daughters of funeral parlor owners, girls who had carried Bermuda bags and drove Mustangs.

After that, I wasn’t so much influenced and just wore what I liked, or – in the case of those menswear suits of the 1980’s – wore what women wore in business back in the day.

The millennials, according to Varo, do feel that “social media portrays an unrealistically positive view of people’s lives”. Nevertheless, they go out and buy stuff “to feel better about their own lives.”

Which they can ill afford to do. Most millennials have no savings. Then there’s all the research that show a correlation between spending time on social media and mental health issues.

I’m just as happy that I came of age before social media, when the only influencer who influenced me was Kathy Shea and her red windbreaker.

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A big old Pink Slip thanks to Ricky T, my brother-in-law, who influenced me to write this post by sending me the link to the Zero Hedge article. He warns me to consider the source, and keep in mind that these surveys may well be BS. Still, I’m pretty sure there’s something there.