2026 is the year for people to stick to their New Year’s resolutions … for 3 weeks.
As the number of people at Planet Fitness dwindles, and the new Stanley cup you bought to drink more water remains full, the year 2026 turns into the year of the Italian Winter Olympics and the release of Dune Part 3.
Most people on social media observe what their favorite influencers do to achieve their ideal lifestyle and decide to implement some parts of it into their own routine. Most last less than a month, sticking to the habits, while some last multiple months, but as soon as people begin reverting to old habits, they feel disappointed in themselves and push off motivation until the next January 1.
According to History.com, the ancient Babylonians are said to have originated the tradition of New Year’s resolutions. During their 12-day-long religious Akitu festival, they would crown a new king, promising the gods they would pay their debts. The practice of “New Year’s resolutions” then spread to ancient Rome, and later influenced early Christians.
Now, some 4,000 years after its origin, New Year’s resolutions are a way for people to reset their habits and improve themselves in the next year. However, this raises the question of whether these goals are built on a foundation of self-reflection and motivation, or on increasing pressure from social media and society, especially for teens as they develop their identity.
For adults, the concept of a fresh start in the new year seems desirable, and understandably, teens who develop habits by learning from adults would follow the same path and also set resolutions. Adolescence is a critical time for us to develop a sense of who we are and who we want to be. With New Year’s resolutions, personal identity is heavily influenced by what society expects us to strive for, confining our individuality, especially in this era of social media influence.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, about 95% of teenagers use social media platforms. With teens constantly consuming media telling them how to act, look, dress, or live, they ultimately end up implementing social media’s expectations in their own lives. Individuality is especially important for teenagers, as it is a means of personal growth throughout the developmental years.
Bella Moore, a junior at Atlanta International School, says she spends time on Instagram watching “day in the lives and house resets,” which are short videos documenting how an influencer’s day-to-day life looks. Bella says she wants to be a pediatric nurse when she grows up, so she says she follows “a bunch of pediatric nurses” and that she’s “going to do everything [pediatric nurses] do to have [their] life.”
With social media and the people we follow serving as the blueprint for who we want to become or who we already relate to, we reinforce societal expectations, which can be very impactful on teens’ individuality.
Dove released a survey as part of its “2023 Dove Pride Research Project Children’s Online Safety Campaign,” which found that 76% of U.S. teenagers agreed that social media encourages them to change their physical appearance. Furthermore, according to Dove, 1 in 2 teenage girls say toxic beauty advice from social media causes low self-esteem.
The term “glow-up,” meaning a person’s transformation into a more attractive version of themselves, is frequently used on social media and in teens’ vocabulary. Leela Basole, a teen at Atlanta International School, says she thinks the term “can be toxic, depending on how it’s used. When it’s framed as becoming more confident, healthier, or more self-assured, that can be really empowering. But it becomes harmful when a glow-up is reduced to physical appearance or tied to external validation.” She also mentions that she thinks “glow-ups happen all the time and people don’t realize it.”
Not only can setting New Year’s resolutions as a teen be generalizing, but it can also lead to much disappointment when the resolution fails. In recent generations, being an influencer has become a full-time job that many teens overlook. However, because influencers were more recently introduced into the media, the hard work and time required to become one are often overlooked. So, when teens see their favorite influencers walking 15k steps each day, the task seems easy, but with school, friends, and extracurriculars, free time is squeezed into fewer hours.
On top of the unrealistic goals, even adopting a small goal into an already stable routine can be super difficult.
But why are resolutions so hard to stick to? According to clinical trials conducted by Dr. Caroline Leaf, it takes roughly 63 days to change a mental habit, and most people give up after around 4 days.
When a task becomes routine and can be performed on autopilot, it is stored in the basal ganglia. Adding something new to your routine then uses the prefrontal cortex, which requires much more mental energy than running on autopilot, ultimately leading many people to revert to default tasks. Along with the difficulties of maintaining a New Year’s Resolution, teens have too many other activities, making it even more challenging to change their routine.
Maybe this means that the real resolution isn’t to change who we are, but rather love what we already have.
