A “Story” is a photo or video uploaded by a user to be seen by their added friends for 24 hours on their specific social media channels. This concept was first introduced by the popular social media platform Snapchat and was quickly added to Instagram and Facebook as a feature in their app and website.
The concept of posting a “Story” is creative, innovative, and effective in social media. These photos and videos posted by their users invite others into their lives virtually whether they are seen by their best friends, colleagues, or acquaintances. It is also great for subtle advertising and an incredible marketing tactic. However, one aspect of the social media feature is that you can see everyone who has viewed your “Story.” Which is helpful for companies to see their demographic using social media analytics but for the general public it can be just another thing to fixate on.
Why You Should Stop Looking at Who Views Your “Story”
- If you decide to keep an ex-significant other on your social media platform, you can prolong moving on if you keep searching through the list of who viewed your “Stories” to find them. Plus, if they don’t end up viewing your “Story” for the day it can cause you unnecessary grief. Don’t do that to yourself.
- It can make you second guess a pure moment in your life that you thought was heartwarming, funny, or ridiculous.
- You can make yourself go crazy by watching the number of views and users. An internal conversation like this may happen – “Why did 100 people watch my first “Story” but only 70 watch my second one? They have only been filmed five minutes apart! Why? WHY?”
- If you unconsciously track who watches your “Stories”, you can create unneeded drama and chaos in your life. You may then start to suddenly question which users care more about you or which users are more invested in your life via social media.
- You can lose focus on your surroundings and possibly lose real-life connections. For example, if you go on a brunch date with someone and you’re more excited about “Snapchating” your food than being with the company. You may be feeding your social media addiction instead.
There are plenty of other reasons why you shouldn’t look at who views your “Stories” because it can be damaging to your self-esteem. It also diverts your attention to pointless numbers and social media analytics that don’t matter in the grand scheme of life. Instead, spend your time smelling the flowers rather than looking at who viewed them through their screen.
Do you look at who views your “Stories?”
Let me know!
This is such an important post!! The last point is especially important imo – I feel like there are a lot of people who like the idea of being in a moment and sharing about it all over social media, but they don’t actually enjoy being in the moment. It’s the worst when someone’s with you and they care more about their phone than you!
Thank you Jessica! That is such a compliment! I absolutely agree with you when you say “It’s the worst when someone’s with you and they care more about their phone than you!”
I googled this because I was driving myself CRAZY. Like, is this normal for people to look at? I feel like an insane person.
Thank you for this post. I’m thinking about deleting all together. It’s especially hard when you only have ~200 followers. Not getting much engagement, so it is really really noticeable who sees and who doesn’t.
Thank you for commenting and enjoying the post Maddy! Social media can be complicated and if you feel like you’re posting content that is authentic to you – then that should be enough to keep going.
This is a great and needed post. I googled how to disable seeing my story views, but that doesn’t exist. It can become ready toxic and damaging to our self-esteem. Everything you said here is on point. Thank you for this! I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who sees the problem in this.
Any tips on how to avoid doing so?
Thank you for this, I literally googled on how to do this bc I need to learn to stop. I’m on a self love journey so I’m trying to revert from always looking at who views my stories bc it’s so damaging to my self esteem. I’ve gotten a little better at it but I do catch myself doing it so I need to refrain myself from going back. It’s definitely a process.
I appreciate this post so much!! I love Instagram so much and is such a wonderful outlet as a creator! But I REFUSE to look at who sees my stories – for the reasons you list! Like why add that extra drama I don’t need??? Not worth it xx so I feel affirmed in that decision by your article ☺️???