Your last paragraph reminds me of this research on more advertising leading to less contentedness: https://hbr.org/2020/01/advertising-makes-us-unhappy https://

Your last paragraph reminds me of this research on more advertising leading to less contentedness: https://hbr.org/2020/01/advertising-makes-us-unhappy https://hbr.org/2020/01/advertising-makes-us-unhappy Showing us what we don't have makes us question and think less of ourselves. It's the same mechanism that can lead to lower mood after seeing everyone's carefully curated lives on social media. Everyone around me is happy all the time, why aren't I? Once you're concious of that bias, it becomes a bit easier to weather, but also uncomfortable in a different way. Personally, we want to share pics of our baby smiling with our friends, but will that make them feel worse when their baby cries for hours? We've been sharing experiences more openly with new parent friends so they understand it's not all rainbows all the time, and have been grateful for others who have done the same to us and reassured us that everyone's taking the bad with the good.