"How many takes did you do before you posted the #nomakeupselfie that you were proud of showing to the world? I can't believe you just scrubbed your make-up off, took a photo, and published it within 10 seconds. Did you?"[1]
In the poll results, 23% said "at least 3 times" and 44% said they lost count. The "ideal" life that everyone is portraying is a joke and a fraud to make themselves feel better because everyone else looks so good because they're making themselves feel better. It's effectively an arms race. (no pun intended)
[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/10713599/No-mak...
One of my study mates from freshman year in college committed suicide down the hall from me during orientation week our sophomore year, presumably due to the dissonance between her pressure to perform and her peers' glee of being back on campus.
http://dailyprincetonian.com/news/2004/09/sophomore-found-de...
http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/12833146/instagra...
One of the themes of that story, as in the OP, is how social media distorts the reality of experience, making people think that everything is exciting and upbeat in others' lives...I think for better or worse, this effect is stronger in Instagram, and not just because of the literal "filters"...what makes Instagram more appealing in general than Facebook is that, being so focused on images and impulse sharing, it's much harder to get into political spats/debates...but it's much more difficult to convey "meh" or other negative emotions. If you focus on someone's Instagram, you can come away with a very distorted assessment of that person's life and emotions.