Category One: Encouraging Authenticity & Everyday Expression
1. Normalizing Everyday Moments, Rejections & Failures
Social media often showcases only the highlights, creating an unrealistic picture of constant success and excitement. This fuels FOMO and self-doubt as users compare their full lives to others' curated moments. Designing features that normalize everyday experiences, rejections, and failures can promote a more authentic and emotionally balanced online culture.
Explanation of the Principle
Social media platforms primarily highlight moments of success, such as new jobs, travels, relationships, fitness progress, or perfectly curated meals. This selective sharing creates an illusion that everyone else's life is exciting and successful, while struggles, failures, and everyday moments remain invisible. As a result, users experience FOMO, feeling as if they are falling behind or not living up to these idealized standards.
To counter this, platforms should incorporate prompts, features, dedicated spaces, and overall design choices that shape a more balanced online culture, encouraging users to share struggles alongside achievements. By normalizing everyday moments, rejections, and failures, social media can become a healthier, more authentic space where users feel less pressure to conform to perfection. Encouraging balanced sharing can foster empathy, relatability, and resilience, reducing the anxiety and self-doubt caused by seeing only success stories.
Quadrant Position
Normalizing Everyday Moments, Rejections & Failures:
This principle is one of ten UX principles designed to reduce FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) in the social media experience of college students. To better understand how each principle functions, they are organized within a visual framework that maps them along two axes:
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User-Controlled vs. Platform-Controlled:
This axis reflects whether the feature or design element is something users can personalize based on their preferences, or if it is set by the platform with limited user control. -
Direct vs. Indirect FOMO:
This axis shows whether the principle addresses obvious and immediate experiences of FOMO, or more subtle and indirect emotional effects that still contribute to feelings of FOMO.
Placement Rationale:
This principle is placed in the Platform-Controlled / Direct FOMO quadrant because it requires platform-level interventions to shift what kinds of content are encouraged, visible, or valued. By introducing features and design cues that promote the sharing of ordinary or difficult experiences, rather than only highlights, the platform can directly reduce the type of FOMO that comes from seeing others’ curated success. Since users often feel left out or inadequate when exposed only to idealized posts, this principle addresses those immediate emotional reactions by creating a more honest and inclusive social environment.
How Psychology Explains This
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Social Comparison Theory (Festinger, 1954) suggests that people evaluate their own worth by comparing themselves to others. On social media, where users are mostly exposed to highlight reels, this often leads to upward comparisons. Comparing oneself to those perceived as doing better can reduce self-esteem and intensify feelings of FOMO.
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Impression Management Theory (Goffman, 1959) explains how individuals shape their public image to gain social approval. Online, this leads to selective self-presentation, where users share successes while hiding rejections, failures, or mundane experiences. This curation distorts reality and creates pressure to maintain a flawless persona.
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The Availability Heuristic (Tversky & Kahneman, 1973) also plays a role. Because successes are more visible and easily recalled than failures, people overestimate how often others succeed, reinforcing the belief that they are uniquely falling behind.
Design Ideas for Applying the Principle
“Reflect & Grow” Option in LinkedIn
Normalizing failure as part of the professional journey
When users click on “Start a post” on LinkedIn, they currently see options like “Celebrate an occasion.” This idea introduces a new option in that same menu called “Reflect & Grow.”
This feature encourages users to share not only their professional successes but also moments of rejection, self-doubt, and personal growth. It helps create a more realistic and relatable professional landscape.
Users can choose from a set of options such as:
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Rejection Stories: Share a time you were told no
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Didn’t Go as Planned: Reflect on a project or plan that didn’t work out
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Still in Progress: Reflect on a challenge you're working through
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Self-Doubt: Share a moment of imposter syndrome or uncertainty
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Tiny Triumphs: Highlight small victories that mattered to you
They can also select from illustration templates similar to the ones used in celebration posts to visually frame their experience.
The goal is to support growth-oriented storytelling in a way that protects users' professional image while normalizing setbacks as part of a healthy career journey, so the platform is not filled only with success stories. This balance can help reduce the fear of missing out on others' achievements.
*Illustration generated using AI
When users open LinkedIn today, they’re mostly met with celebratory posts like these:
“Reflect & Grow” adds a new option for sharing moments of rejection, self-doubt, and personal growth:
Lowlight Prompt Picker for Instagram Stories
In Instagram Stories, users currently have access to interactive sticker options like Location, Mention, Music, and Polls. This idea introduces a new feature called the Lowlight Prompt Picker. It is a built-in prompt library designed to encourage more honest and balanced sharing beyond the usual polished highlights.
Instead of posting only the most exciting parts of life, users can choose from reflective or mundane prompts that invite more authentic storytelling, even when nothing particularly notable has happened. The goal is to gently encourage users to share less polished moments such as everyday routines, quiet struggles, small disappointments, or neutral moods. By normalizing the less interesting parts of life, this feature helps reduce the illusion that everyone is always thriving and supports a more emotionally authentic social media experience.
Design Rationale:
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Makes authenticity easier by removing the pressure to be perfect or glamorous
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Encourages creative self-expression even on “off” or boring days
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Helps shift Instagram Stories culture from curation to connection
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Builds a new form of low-pressure participation
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Can subtly balance FOMO-inducing content in the feed
Prompt Examples:
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This was today. Nothing fancy.
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When life gives you lemons... but forgets the sugar
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No big win today, just existing
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Feeling meh and moving on
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Currently being mediocre at…
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A moment I paused, even if it was boring
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Not a highlight, just a real thing
Plugin Feature Inspired by This Principle
Reality Check Nudges
When users scroll through a highly curated feed for an extended time, the plugin can gently step in with “Reality Check” nudges, which are small reminders that help users stay grounded. These nudges are personalized based on the user's FOMO patterns, which the plugin learns through a short series of onboarding questions and real-time self-reports submitted by the user during moments when FOMO hits.
Examples include:
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“Remember what you’re seeing is someone’s highlight reel, not the whole story.”
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“Remember, what you see online is curated. Real life is more complex than just achievements.”
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“It's okay if your day isn't exciting or aesthetically perfect. Most people don't share their in-between moments, but those moments matter too.”
What makes this feature especially meaningful is its customizability. Early on, the plugin invites users to write short, supportive messages to their future selves, something they would want to hear when FOMO hits. For example:
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“From your past self: You always think you’re behind when you scroll too much. You said you wouldn’t fall for this again!”
By offering context-aware reminders and emotional check-ins, the plugin helps users interrupt comparison spirals and stay mindful of the curated nature of social media.
Challenges & Limitations of This Principle
User Resistance to Breaking Habits
Many users are used to sharing only curated, high points of their lives, often shaped by years of seeking likes, approval, and positive reinforcement. Encouraging them to post about rejections, failures, or ordinary routines challenges long-standing social habits. Even with supportive features, users may hesitate to break away from the norm, fearing vulnerability, judgment, or simply feeling awkward about being too real in a space that rewards perfection. Changing this behavior requires time, trust, and cultural shifts within the platform itself.
Platform Business Model Conflicts
Social media platforms rely on content that drives high engagement and emotional intensity. Honest posts about rejections or ordinary moments may receive less interaction, causing algorithms to deprioritize them. This can discourage users from sharing similar content again. However, supporting more balanced and authentic posts doesn’t necessarily reduce time spent on the platform. A healthier, more relatable environment can still keep users engaged while improving long-term trust and retention.
Emotional Tone and Platform Atmosphere
Too many vulnerable posts in a feed may shift the overall tone of the platform. While authenticity is valuable, overemphasizing difficult moments without balance could unintentionally make the platform feel heavy or emotionally draining. The challenge lies in supporting honesty without tipping the atmosphere too far.