Body Image and Social Media

Being bombarded with messages and images focusing on appearance and status is not new to this generation of young people. Indeed, decades of research demonstrate that exposure to narrow beauty standards is correlated with body image concerns (this includes how young people think about their physical appearance, including bodies, faces, hair, eyes, etc.). Whether through print, TV, or advertisements, the reality is that girls, in particular, have long been bombarded with messages and images convincing them that the most important thing about their identities is their physical appearance.

Just because it’s been a longstanding toxic trend doesn’t mean that we should throw up our hands and surrender with, “This is just the way things are.” Indeed, the design attributes of specific social media platforms like Instagram can exacerbate upward social comparisons. Dr. Sophia Choukas-Bradley, who studies gender and adolescent mental health, notes that overall time on social media, in general, is not consistently connected to body image issues. But we see a much stronger relationship when we zoom in on upward social comparison in highly visual media.

Apps like Instagram may present specific challenges because they are:

• Highly visual: Many people, especially celebrities and influencers, carefully curate their images on highly visual social platforms and even manipulate images to adhere to light skin, straight hair, thin (or muscular), able-bodied, and wealthy beauty standards.
• Quantifiable: Young people don’t have to imagine how popular someone or something is; they can see it for themselves in likes and shares.

These attributes make it difficult for any of us to resist the urge to engage in social comparison online. But early adolescence is a uniquely vulnerable time when it comes to social media and body image. Adolescents are going through specific developmental changes, including:

• Physical changes: Changes in body size and weight. For most kids, this makes them less like the beauty standards pushed by social media.
• Social changes: Teens are much more susceptible to peer opinion.
• Cognitive changes: The capacity to think in abstract ways includes the ability to consider “imaginary audiences.”
• Identity changes: Social comparison is a natural process, but as young people explore their own identities and start to answer the question, “Who am I?” social comparison goes into overdrive.

The costs of being camera-ready.

The challenge is that platforms like Instagram weren’t designed with these developmental strengths and vulnerabilities in mind. They were designed for clicks, shares, scrolls, and sales. They were also designed so that a young person’s photo could be shared widely at any moment. According to Dr. Choukas-Bradley, this mismatch can create the “perfect storm” for some young people who spend hours a day on highly visual social media.

This storm can intensify when teens become preoccupied with producing highly curated and edited images themselves. A team of researchers recently introduced a new construct to explain the psychological impact of constantly being “camera-ready.” They have found that “appearance-related social media consciousness” predicts body image concerns and depressive symptoms over time.

It’s not all bad, all the time.

Does this mean that social media is the sole cause of body image issues or disordered eating? No. Many young people benefit in important ways from the connections and community they find on these platforms.

Beauty ideals are culturally constructed, and many young people curate their feeds to seek the healthy representation of their identities. This can be especially powerful to kids who don’t see themselves reflected in their communities or in mainstream media. Others may proactively follow influencers that depict a broad range of beauty ideals and authentic representations of their bodies and lives.

We also shouldn’t discount other well-known risk factors for body dissatisfaction and eating disorders in a narrow focus on social media. These include stress and trauma, racism, and food insecurity, among others. For many teens, social media may be magnifying and reinforcing existing vulnerabilities we should not ignore.

What can we do?

Right now, there is a lot of important discussion about platform accountability and designing platforms with adolescent health and development in mind. More research on the specific ways that race and gender interact to shape young people’s self-worth and body image online and offline will help us better design platforms that center around young people’s diverse needs.

In the meantime, though, we can talk to teens early and often about aligning their online activities with the things that make them feel better about themselves and each other. This kind of “values-aligned” media use can buffer young people from the more negative effects. Curating feeds for body-positive influencers, creating body-positive content, and practicing critical media literacy all matter.

Stay curious. Keep talking.

Let’s be clear. Not all teens are eager to sit down with us to formally reflect on their digital lives. But just deleting apps without talking about these issues is likely to backfire. The onslaught of messaging about worth, value, and appearance does not begin and end on Instagram. Ongoing conversations with kids about these topics are protective across both online and offline activities.

Most of us know that social media doesn’t reflect real life. But it often takes ongoing conversations and reflection to really know it. And part of growing up is getting to know ourselves and our self-worth well enough to be able to protect it.

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