Comparison Is the Thief of Joy—But Why Is It So Addictive?

“Why can’t you be more like them?”

For many people, comparison starts long before social media. It might come from parents pointing out a cousin who gets better grades, teachers praising another student as the ideal example, or relatives asking why someone else seems to be doing better. Over time, these comments make comparison feel normal, even expected, in some cases.

Today, the same habit is present online. A quick scroll through Instagram or LinkedIn can turn into a competition. Someone posts about landing an internship, someone else celebrates getting into graduate school, and another person announces a promotion. Even when we are genuinely happy for them, it can still trigger the same uncomfortable thought: Am I falling behind?

Psychologists have studied this tendency for decades. In 1954, psychologist Leon Festinger introduced the idea of Social Comparison Theory. The theory suggests that people naturally evaluate themselves by looking at others. When there is no clear standard for success, we look at the people around us to judge how well we are doing.

These comparisons usually take 2 directions. The first is upward comparison. This is when we compare ourselves to people who seem to be doing better than we are. Seeing a friend get their dream job or publish research might make us question our own progress. Sometimes this can be motivating, but often it creates pressure because we are comparing our everyday struggles with someone else’s best moment.

The second is downward comparison, where people compare themselves to someone who appears to be doing worse. This can make us feel better for a short time, but the feeling does not last very long. Our confidence still ends up depending on how we measure up against others.

Social media makes both types of comparison stronger. Most people only share the good parts of their lives online, such as achievements, celebrations, and big milestones. Rarely do we see the rejected applications, the uncertainty, or the long periods where nothing seems to be working out. Because of this, we often end up comparing our entire reality with someone else’s highlight reel.

Research has shown that constantly comparing ourselves with others can affect mood and self-esteem. While people often say that seeing others succeed should inspire us, it can just as easily make us feel like we are not doing enough!

One way to deal with this is to focus less on other people’s timelines and more on personal progress. Instead of asking whether we are ahead or behind someone else, it can help to ask whether we have grown compared to where we were before. Learning new skills, gaining experience, or simply figuring out what we want can also count as progress, even if it does not look impressive in a social media post.

Comparison feels almost automatic because it gives us a quick way to judge where we stand. However, real satisfaction rarely comes from constantly measuring ourselves against others. It usually comes from paying attention to our own path and allowing it to unfold at its own pace:)