The Role That Social Media Plays in Body Satisfaction
1000 word essay I wrote for Clinical Psychology evaluating the negative and positives associated with body satisfaction and social media.
Human beings instinctually compare themselves to others in attempts to better understand where they rank in society’s hierarchy (Festinger, 1954). Body image, an accumulation of personal perceptions, thoughts, and emotions associated with one’s own body, is often inadvertently tainted in this way, as most compulsory appearance comparisons are made against someone deemed as more attractive (Jiotsa et al., 2021; Fardouly et al., 2017). If internalized, constant upward appearance comparisons can create amplified body and weight concerns for individuals, resulting in an imbalance in one’s real body and their idealized body (Jiotsa et al., 2021). This produces a construct called body dissatisfaction. Young women are disproportionally affected by body dissatisfaction, with girls as young as six claiming that they prefer bodies that are thinner than their current frames (Lowes & Tiggemann, 2003).
There is a plethora of potential culprits that can be responsible for creating body dissatisfaction; however, the most detrimental may be social media (Fardouly et al., 2017). Social media platforms are online communication facilitators, that allow users to become their own content creators: sharing photos/videos, information, and adding/blocking friends (Tiggemann & Zaccardo, 2015). These platforms are easily accessible, and are consistently increasing in popularity, with about 88% of young people aged 16 to 24 in the EU using them for at least two hours a day, at any time of the day (Eurostat, 2017; Mander, 2017). One of the major issues with social media is that it has tremendously widened the pool of comparable people. Not only are social media consumers comparing themselves to the people immediately around them, but also to the millions of other users of social media (Jiotsa et al., 2021). Research suggests that women compare their appearance to others on social media more than on any other media platform (i.e., television, magazines, billboards), and social media comparisons are the most detrimental to body image and body satisfaction (Fardouly et al., 2017).
Furthermore, social media posters are the editors and chiefs of their own content, even if the ramifications of their posts are not completely known or understood. As long as the post is within the platform’s guidelines, the user can post it. Users that are themselves victims of the same detrimental, body idealistic brainwashing are free to ironically post exaggeratedly glamourous, edited, and carefully selected pictures (Manago et al, 2008). Some of these images are so altered that they are incomparable to the poster’s real-life appearance (Chua, Chang, 2016). This not only continues the endorsement of negative body ideals, but creates a false fallacy that individuals are more attractive and living more flourishing lives than they actually are (Tiggemann & Anderber, 2020). Consequently, viewers of this content can experience lowered body satisfaction, as they will compare themselves to the unrealistic representation of the poster that they see online (Fardouly et al., 2017).
Additionally, the implementation of virtual interactions such as likes, comments, and followers, play a major role in body image and body satisfaction. These virtual interaction features are common to many social media platforms and can be used as metrics to measure one’s own beauty, as posters are able to observe how many interactions their post has, compared to others (Chua & Chang, 2016). This allows people to put an actual number to their social ranking. Instagram, a picture based social media platform that has about 200 million daily users, uses like buttons, comment sections, and followers as some of the main functionalities of its site (Tiggemann et al, 2018). The number of likes, comments, and followers that each person has is displayed for everyone to see; consequently, creating a natural competition between users (Dumas et al., 2017). This generates a constant need to chase more attention, validation, and recognition to achieve more likes, comments, and followers (Chua & Chang, 2016). Negative body satisfaction, a lower sense of self-worth, and self-harm can be the results of individuals receiving low amounts of virtual interactions, as it could be interpreted as a personal indictment (Chua & Chang, 2016).
Yes, many social media users are using social media platforms to perpetuate negative body image standards; however, some are conversely trying to right their wrongs. The overwhelming evidence highlighting and identifying the negatives associated with social media has awakened a newfound consciousness in many social media users. For instance, a new wave of online activists have started a movement called “Instagram versus reality’ (Tiggeman & Anderberg, 2020). Participants have begun posting an idealized version of themselves, using perfect lighting and posing to show their best attributes, next to a more realistic picture of themselves in normal lighting and a natural pose. These posts help viewers better understand that Instagram is not how most people look in real life and is merely an idealized version of themselves. This type of post has even been found to lessen body dissatisfaction in comparison to idealized Instagram posts (Tiggemann & Anderberg, 2020). Furthermore, another new movement called the “Body positivity movement” has become increasingly popular. This movement encourages social media users to accept and find the beauty in all body types while rejecting previously perpetuated body ideals (Cohen et al., 2019).
Overall, social media has both negatives and positives associated with body satisfaction. On one hand, we as human beings instinctually compare ourselves to others, and social media makes that too easy. Moreover, the comparisons that are made on social media are usually against overly exaggerated pictures, with a large number of virtual interactions which validifies these images. The summation of this equation heightens the risk of body dissatisfaction. However, not all hope is lost, as the new emergence of online activism has begun to create an atmosphere of consciousness that may be able to right some of the many wrongs that social media has produced.
References
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