“I am humbled to announce” has become the least humble sentence on the internet. Followed by internships, a professional headshot and perfect grammar, LinkedIn users have used this catchphrase in almost every single post. The platform has become less about careers and more about self-promotion; it is subtly distorting how students are beginning to think about success.
Students obsess over connection counts in the same way people obsess over Instagram followers, refreshing pages to see who viewed their profile, who accepted their request and who validated their skills. Even verifying an account feels less about security and more about proving their legitimacy. The platform emphasizes professional growth, but it pushes us to label ourselves before we have even had time to become ourselves.
When every scroll reveals someone else’s success, it becomes a habit to measure your self-worth in bullet points. LinkedIn turns career progress into a public spectacle, where success appears constant. The problem is not that people are achieving impressive accomplishments; it is that we are rarely shown the anxiety behind them. We see the offer letter, not the rejections; we see the flawless headshots, not the late-night panic about applications. The more we scroll, the more it feels like everyone else is miles ahead, already securing internships for the summer months from now. Psychologists have researched that constant exposure to curated success fuels comparison, and LinkedIn may be the most curated program of all.
On a campus where internship deadlines circulate as quickly as party invites, I have begun to question when this all started. During our college years, many of us are still figuring out what we are interested in pursuing later in life, but it can feel like we are already late. At a campus like Colgate University, where ambition surrounds our daily lives, these pressures feel severe. The more we scroll, the more it can seem like everyone else is accelerating toward a future that seems out of reach. One user notification and career success is framed as a public scoreboard rather than a private process. Before LinkedIn, career milestones were quieter. You told your friends when you got an internship, you updated your resume and maybe told a few relatives. But success wasn’t broadcast to hundreds of acquaintances in real time. There was more privacy and room to fail quietly and to pursue something without everyone knowing immediately. Now, every step can feel like content. Growth becomes a performance, and niche experiences become posts.
Real networking is relational. It grows out of conversations, not connection requests. A meaningless compliment or a shared school name has become conventional. While these messages can open doors, they also diminish how people form real relationships. Some connections feel less about mentorship and more about optics; who appears in your network rather than who genuinely knows your skills. As someone interested in journalism, I believe that meaningful professional development happens in dialogue, not comment sections.
LinkedIn is not intentionally harmful. It has provided access to opportunity in new ways. For students without built-in professional networks, the platform can offer access to alumni and industries that feel closed-off. It increases visibility and allows people to tell their own stories. But when the platform rewards performance, it subtly reshapes how we define achievement. Success becomes something to display rather than to learn from.
Maybe the problem isn’t LinkedIn itself, but how easily we let it define us. A platform designed to connect professionals should not determine our sense of worth. Growth is never straightforward. It is never as polished as a post suggests. As I’ve thought about this app, I have come to realize that some achievements should remain private.
Instead of abandoning the platform, we can use it differently. We can value private growth as much as public validation. Success shouldn’t be performative. By reconsidering what achievement is, LinkedIn might become the tool it was meant to be.
I am humbled to announce that I have decided to stop announcing everything. Not every internship needs a caption. Not every milestone needs a hashtag. Real confidence looks less like a post and more like quiet progress.
