8 Dangers Of Conspicuous Living That Can Do You Real Harm

They can harm your life in ways you were never aware of

Living conspicuously is, living in a way that the details of your personal life are displayed all to see, so as to garner attention, admiration, or sympathy. Living your life, or at least a part of it conspicuously exposes those parts to indiscriminate scrutiny.

These days social media is the main medium through which this publicity is achieved thanks to its system of instant real-time updates.

"In either case of living conspicuously, intimate details of our lives can be made available even to perfect strangers."

For the rich, living conspicuously invariably means consuming conspicuously. In other words, flexing. They blatantly spend obscene amounts of money to acquire luxury items and services to signal that status.

They do it also because it is the cost of admission to or membership dues of belonging to the big boys/girls club.

Sadly, they also practice their compassion this way. They spend publicly in charity mainly to enhance their prestige as donors of high social, and economic status. Happily, the receivers of that “charity” will nonetheless benefit regardless of the donor’s motivations.

In either case of living conspicuously, intimate details of our lives can be made available even to perfect strangers. People who, otherwise, would have no business knowing those details, and therein lies the danger.

“Happily, the receivers of that “charity” will nonetheless benefit regardless of the donor’s motivations.”

For one thing, it is foolhardy to be under the illusion that everyone wishes you well due to your good fortune or everyone will leave you alone to just live your life. Not everyone will. Some will be inclined to do something about it.

There are groups of people who spend their lives preying on others, and conspicuous living signals to them one is an easy mark. Well, it is all out there after all.

It is worth noting however, that not all criminals are cyber. The potential dangers some of them pose to you and your loved ones are not restricted to digital systems or networks.

Some of the dangers inherent in displaying the details of your life for all to consume are:

1. Perfect strangers have access to what is going on in your private life When you have hundreds and hundreds of friends or followers on social media one thing is sure, you don’t know everybody. Therefore you are giving perfect strangers access to information they otherwise would not have. This revealing look at your private details including habits and behavioral patterns can be enabling to some very dangerous people. It is worth noting, however, that not all criminals are cyber. The potential dangers some of them pose to you and your loved ones are not restricted to digital systems or networks. For some, just knowing your locations is dangerous enough. Especially when they are not after your information or you personally because your location tells them when your possessions or loved ones are vulnerable.
2. It can further intensify your need for attention Living life this way can potentially drive the need for attention to pathological heights. It is especially risky for people predisposed to certain personality disorders like, histrionic personality disorder (HPD). Although not much is certain about the causes of HPD, platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, which provide a ready avenue for people to live their lives conspicuously are most likely factors that speed up its development in people predisposed to the disorder.
3. You stop living your life for yourself Conspicuous living can lead to getting too caught up in the urge to compete and draw attention to yourself when you are immersed in showcasing your achievements for validation or embellishing your stories for applaud or sympathy. Essentially you are just living for likes, shares, retweets, and the amount of jealousy or envy you can cause in other people. This competition invariably means you are always too invested in what other people might be doing.
4. Oversharing certain details of your life can diminish your future prospects 70% of employers use social media to weed out undesirable candidates during the hiring process according to a CareerBuilder’s survey. It seems the days of potential candidates being hired purely on their submitted resumes are long gone. So you need to be careful what you put out there. Also according to the survey, the main types of posts that left potential employers with negative impressions included posts of provocative or inappropriate photos, drinking binges or drug use, and surprise, posting too frequently!
5. Living conspicuously can also jeopardize your current position Ashley Payne, a 24-year English teacher in Georgia lost her job over a photo taken during a summer vacation in Europe. A concerned parent was said to have complained about it, and the district found that the photo violated warnings about unacceptable online activities. Ashley is just part of a statistic- 34% of employers have had to either reprimand or fire employees due to content found online. Again about half of employers (48%) also use social media to check up on their employees to ensure their online presence remains positive.
6. Predators will know about your physical and or psychological vulnerabilities Announcing to the world your fragile states could signal to people who prey on the vulnerable that you are ripe for the picking. This typically results from posts intended to elicit sympathies. Even though such people could very well be within your circle of “friends”, not everyone within your social circles should be privy to all the intimate details of your life.
7. Conspicuous living can alienate people from you Gaining status is not the only product of living conspicuously. Alienating people and negative backlash are by-products worth thinking about. That and gaining new enemies. The in-your-face good living, especially in this post-pandemic era of declining economic fortunes, can understandably provoke resentment. And it is not hard to see why because some of such displays can easily be perceived as callous and insensitive.
8. You can put yourself under unnecessary pressures When the idealized picture-perfect versions of the lives people put out do not really tally with their real lives people unwittingly subject themselves to the pressures when the two begin to stack against each other. Plus they can open themselves up to cyberbullying when eventually the word gets out.

So while your living conspicuously might be intended to win you more “friends”, likes, shares, sympathy, or engender envy in others the potential dangers and negative blowback can be unpleasant, to say the least.

Apart from the physical dangers, it can expose you to, there are other repercussions. All is not lost however, there are a few measures you can take:

• Always be your authentic self as much as possible. When researchers collected data from over 10,000 users on Facebook, they found that the more authentic users rated their own profiles, the higher their levels of self-satisfaction.
• Tighten those privacy and security settings made available by social media providers and limit posting personal information as much as possible.. Otherwise, criminals can simply get all the information they need about you by simply googling you.
• Prune your social media circles. Too many friends on social media just mean more random receivers of your updates. Do not accept friends requests from people you do not know.
• If you suspect you or anyone you know is living conspicuously due to intense internal pressures then you should consider seeking professional help.
• Finally, you can stay off social media. Stop using it for validation. If you are living the good life, you know it without having to wait for others to tell you so.

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