Laura Whitmore has written an essay about the pressure people face to appear perfect on social media and has urged people to stop comparing their lives to others.
The 33-year-old spoke about how it is easy to feel down about yourself by looking at other people's lives on social media, saying she feels "averageness" should be celebrated and that we need to "give ourselves a break."
"If you are the best you can be, you are doing your best. You’re only average compared to other people," Whitmore wrote on stylist.co.uk.
"Years ago we didn’t really know what everyone else was accomplishing. We read stuff in newspapers and gossiped about the neighbours. Now we are bombarded with the successes of someone else the minute we unlock our phones. We constantly compare our lives to someone we may never have met."
Speaking about how people's lives are curated on social media to put forward only good content, Whitmore added, "I’ll let you in on the worst kept secret, there are over 40 filters on Instagram for a reason (that’s without downloading all the other apps to refilter that filtered picture).
"Most of us are average, we just choose to display that averageness in an exceptional way."
In a second feature for the website, Whitmore spoke about how she is "still learning" about herself and how it took her "a while to fully find my voice."
"I’ve always thought of myself as a strong person. However, it’s taken me a while to fully find my voice. I’m still learning new things about myself every day. And the more I’m aware of my surroundings, the stronger sense of self I develop," she wrote.
