There was a time when a great night out ended with laughter echoing into the night and memories tucked safely into the folds of your mind. Today, it ends with a flood of Instagram Stories, Snapchat filters, and a mental tally of likes.
A perfect dinner, a spontaneous trip, a mundane coffee run — if it’s not posted, did it even happen? Welcome to the age of over-sharing, where the line between living and performing has never been more blurred.
It’s not entirely our fault. Social media has rewired our instincts. Once upon a time, you would be content to quietly experience your joy. Now, there’s an almost instinctive reflex: you pull out your phone first before pulling yourself into the moment. A new car? It needs a “key reveal” post. Your best friend’s birthday dinner? It needs a carousel with an obligatory “About last night” caption. A simple walk around Lekki Conservation Centre? If it’s not on your Instagram grid, you might as well not have gone.
And nowhere is this more relatable than in Nigeria, a country where perception and status often walk hand-in-hand. Success — or at least the appearance of it — has become a prized currency, and social media is now our collective stage. Lagos especially feels like a city where you can post your way into a new tax bracket. Dinner at a bougie restaurant? Gym selfies at a wellness resort in Ikoyi? Beach shots at Ilashe? Post it. Tag it. Geotag it. Watch the followers grow.
But why have we become so obsessed?
It’s partly cultural. Nigerians, for all our resilience, carry an unspoken pressure to show progress. Our society has long equated external markers — car, house, clothes, vacations — with internal worth. Social media simply amplified an old habit. It didn’t invent our need for validation; it industrialised it.
In a recent survey on digital habits across Africa, Nigerians ranked among the highest in time spent on social platforms. And it’s not hard to see why: we are vibrant storytellers by nature. We love gist. We love community. Social media allows us to build digital communities where gist never ends — and where your life story unfolds like a Netflix series, episode by episode, post by post.
But the darker side of this is the curated self — a version of ourselves shaped not just by who we are, but who we think people want us to be. The subtle competition. The FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). The race to outdo, outshine, outpost.
You see it everywhere: the “soft life” culture, for instance, is now a full-blown phenomenon. And while celebrating enjoyment and luxury isn’t the problem (if anyone deserves to rest, it’s Nigerians), the performance of “soft living” often feels obligatory. It’s no longer enough to enjoy a vacation; you have to create content on the beach, straw hat tilted just so, cocktail glistening in the sun. It’s no longer enough to attend a wedding; you must document the dress reveal, the makeup process, the ride to the venue, the first dance, the after-party. Otherwise, what was it all for?
There’s a famous saying among Nigerian youth now: “If it’s not on Instagram, it didn’t happen.” Half-joke, half-truth. Because even while we laugh, there’s a part of us that believes it. There’s a strange kind of pressure to package every experience, to live not just for the sake of living but for the sake of showing that we are living.
But at what cost?
The paradox is glaring: in trying to prove we are living fully, we often end up living less authentically. How present are you when you’re already thinking about your next post? How deeply do you feel about an experience when you’re viewing it through the lens of “How will this look online?”
We’ve normalised this so much that people now experience moments with an audience in mind. Birthday surprises are staged. Charity gestures are documented with precision. Even grief is sometimes captured mid-performance — a montage of hospital visits, heartfelt captions, and crying selfies. And the internet, which was once a window to connect, often feels like a mirror to perform.
In Nigeria, this pressure cuts across class. It’s not just the influencers or celebrities; it’s the everyday person, too. From the student doing “First Day of School” photo dumps to the aunty posting her “early morning prayer walk” selfies, everyone’s participating — consciously or not. And if you think you’re immune, consider this: how often do you find yourself reaching for your phone, almost unconsciously, during moments that used to feel private?
So, what’s the way forward?
First, a bit of honesty with ourselves. It’s okay to post. It’s okay to share. But it’s also okay to just experience — without the need for witnesses.
Also, it’s worth reclaiming some spaces for yourself. Not every achievement needs to be announced. Not every heartbreak needs a cryptic sub. Not every soft moment needs a soft-life reel. Some things are sweeter when savoured privately. As the old Igbo proverb goes, “The bird that knows how to fly does not fly during the day for everyone to see.”
Real living happens in the silences too — in the unposted conversations, the unfiltered laughs, the quiet wins. And sometimes, the most powerful experiences are the ones that no one else knows about.
As we keep experiencing this digital-first world, the goal isn’t to abandon sharing altogether. (Let’s be honest, Nigerians will always find a way to pepper their followers.) The goal is balance. Authenticity. Freedom. The freedom to live richly offline, even when the WiFi is strong.
Because at the end of the day, a life well-lived isn’t measured by posts, likes, or followers. It’s measured by memories — the kind too beautiful, too raw, too real to be captured by a camera lens.
And that, dear reader, is something worth holding onto.
