If you’re trying to save money, you may want to take a break from social media.
A new survey reveals that one in four millennials say they feel pressured to keep up with their friends’ spending and lavish lifestyles, especially when it involves social media posts they see around purchases and vacations.
A TD Ameritrade survey found that social media plays a pretty significant role in millennials’ spending and saving habits.
Two-thirds of respondents say that social media causes them to compare their lifestyle and spending to others.
By contrast, only 29 per cent of Baby Boomers report the same sentiment.
This isn’t shocking; social media is a major cause of insecurity as we’re no longer “keeping up with the Joneses” but pretty much everyone we’ve ever met and their perfectly curated, perpetually fab social media lives.
Overall, 15 per cent of millennials admit to spending money to make a good impression. Men are are particularly influenced by peer pressure to spend.
“Male millennials are more likely to spend money to make a good impression than female millennials,” says TD spokeswoman Melissa Matson, according to Time.com.
The survey found it’s more common for male millennials to believe that spending money now to have fun is worth more than saving to spend in the future.
It’s a trend I see among most of my friends, both male and female. Armed with a sense of wanderlust and an ingrained notion to live in the moment, very few of us are saving for a rainy day.
That’s why it comes as no surprise that over half of millennials report they often haven’t saved as much as they wanted to on a monthly basis.
It could also be the reason that a surprising number of people well into their 30s are still mooching off mom and dad. But, as the survey says, the first step to breaking that cycle may just be to take a little break from social media.
If you can’t, keep in mind that nobody’s life is as great as it is on online. If you need some more reassurance, check out the work of this photographer who shows just how fake social media really is.
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