Social Media Pressure: Is It Too Much For The Modern Student Athletes?

For student athletes, it’s more than the depression caused by social media’s manipulation; it’s also the added pressure to carry themselves just as flawlessly for their own, thousands of followers, regardless of how brutal that audience may be.

Every student on a college campus has been affected by the staged, altered photos on social media, but it’s student athletes who suffer most from these  idealistic portrayals. Social media offers college students a glimpse into only the best moments of their friends’ lives, depicting an exciting, beautiful, easy existence, but ignoring the fact that it’s only a fraction of their experiences.

So why do student athletes get it the worst? It may be the college’s responsibility to act on this issue before it’s too late.

Both at school and in the community, people begin to view student athletes as  leaders. These athletes can quickly gain thousands of followers on social media!  So while these athletes struggle to succeed, they are also trying to manage the comments of the thousands who are pecking at them across social channels.  

If a typical college student were to rate the amount of scrutiny their photos receive on Instagram, the number may be high, but student athletes (thousands of followers), critics can be overbearing.  In fact, with so many watchful admirers, their slightest shortcoming will be publicized, the most minor error blown out of proportion, and any misjudgment used as ammunition.

For whatever reason, people are most captivated by a public figure’s failures, and on social media, those failures will be screenshot so they last a lifetime. So while student athletes engage their audience with perfectly filtered photos to be excessively complimented, they’re also awaiting the second they take one wrong step, to be ruthlessly attacked.

For student athletes, balancing the unrealistic expectations they set for themselves, as well as the need for their followers’ approval, doesn’t get much easier or any healthier than it sounds. And although athletes might grow accustomed to the negative aspects of playing college sports, it’s only after a few very vulnerable, risky couple of years. Student athletes at the beginning of their college careers often find themselves on a slippery slope emotionally, although it’s not always obvious. The adjustment from a high school setting to a college setting is intense, with the adjustment from a high school athlete to a college athlete proving equally as intimidating, and the sudden popularity matched by hateful remarks of strangers online can be too difficult to handle. 



So while a student athlete may be making mindful decisions as far as posting appropriately as a representative of their school, there’s more to think about when it comes to these athlete’s relationship with social media. Even more, it’s the institution’s responsibility to act on this before it’s too late. Social media pressure needs to be addressed throughout the season and year, and strategies to offset these pressures must be established.