Social Media dilemma for young couples
Social Media dilemma
Where social media has a lot of positive contributions to our modern society, it started a warfare of constant comparison of our lives with others. We are now spending more time & money keeping up with the “Kardashians” in our own families and circles. Yes, social media has created Kardashians in our own families.
Social media has glamorized luxury spending in the same way our mainstream media glamorized smoking in the 50s and look where it led us to. It took us more than half a century to realize the consequences.
The luxury spending in travel, outdoor dining and home décor alone has spiked up to a whopping multi-trillion dollar industry, which is great for businesses and even better for buyers who can afford it but the reality is that most of us can’t afford it, but are stuck in a loop of making our Instagrams as colorful as it can be. The pressure of this false validation from other people in the form of “likes” and “comments” is creating financial burdens on newly married couples. In the Muslim households in America, the majority still has 1 income and that’s being spent on lavish vanity by impressions that a must buy on IG nowadays or rooftop dining that will cost an average of $400 for two people. For husbands like us, we get sucked into spending this money (that we don’t have) in making our better halves happier but what we don’t realize is that this luxury spending has no limits. When you just returned from a 5 day vacation in the Bahamas, you would immediately start looking into a “weekend getaway” to the Rockies just because of a recommended post by IG. The problem is not this trip alone, it is the extra $$$ we spend on a $100 fruit platter breakfast because it is #instapic worthy. We can also book a hotel 5 miles out in the outskirts as a cheaper option but would want to spend an extra $2K (on average) by booking a villa on the island.
Millennials like us, now realize how buying a house was a trap and mortgage system were built to create wealth for the big banks. It prevented us from taking this new job opportunity in North Carolina because we now have a house and roots in Jersey. That’s how our parents and grandparents did it. Must be right!!
Social media is creating the similar bubble for Millennials. What’s worse is that we are doing it not for our own pleasure but to compete with other couples or friends.
I think that’s dangerous and it should not take 3 generations to realize that this is a trap just like mortgage industry.
It’s time to start a healthy conversation with your significant other on finances and financial freedom.
