Social Media Has Made Us Perform Our Lives Instead of Living Them

I went for a run last week and caught myself doing something embarrassing mid-jog: checking whether my pace looked good enough to post. Not good enough to feel proud of, good enough to post. That was when I realised how normal it has become to experience our lives with an audience in mind.

Open Strava and it barely feels like just a fitness tracker anymore. It has kudos, comments, clubs and leaderboards. T3 reports that Strava is continuing to lean further into social networking in 2026. Maybe that makes exercise more motivating, but it’s changing why we do it. Suddenly, a slow run isn’t just a slow run; it’s something other people can see, judge and compare.

And it doesn’t stop with exercise. Videos of people waking up, doing their skincare, making breakfast, commuting to work and ordering coffee turn completely ordinary moments into content. Dinner needs a photo before anyone can eat. A concert needs a video proving you were there. Holidays are mentally edited into Instagram photo dumps before they’re even over. Even supposedly “casual” posts are carefully chosen to look like they weren’t carefully chosen.

I’m not against sharing. I’m against the tiny calculation that happens when an experience becomes something we might post: Will this look good on Instagram? Social media hasn’t just changed how we document our lives; it’s changed how we live them.

Research from NYU Stern found that taking photos with the intention of sharing them can actually reduce how much we enjoy an experience. The researchers linked this to increased concern about how we present ourselves to others. That distinction matters. Taking a photo isn’t the problem. The problem is when we start seeing our own experiences through the eyes of an imagined audience. If you’re already thinking about how the concert, dinner or holiday will look online, how present are you actually being?

I don’t think the answer is deleting Instagram, TikTok or Strava. It’s remembering that not every good moment needs evidence, and we don’t need to choose experiences simply because they’ll make good content.

Sometimes the best run is slow. Sometimes the best day is the one you don’t post.

And sometimes life is better when nobody is watching.