Could you think of how old you were when you made your first social media account? People now and days are attached to social media. Everywhere you turn, someone is glued to their cell phones: vlogging their lives on Snapchat, making tweets on Twitter, or posting photographs on Instagram and Facebook. These platforms have been ways for people to socialize, entertain, and meet new people, however, social media constructs a false perception of reality and evokes people to idealize the physical characteristics of others. Athletes, celebrities, models, etc., everyone has one that they idolize. These sociocultural ideas are always evolving, and people are trying their hardest to stay up to date. This especially plays an active role in the lives of the adolescents. With the internet becoming more prominent in our daily lives, adolescents are being exposed to it at an increasing rate compared to others. With their minds and bodies still developing, it’s harder for them to internalize what they are witnessing and adapt it to their own lifestyle. Ultimately, social media influences adolescents’ physical, emotional and social state through its vision of ideality.
Body image plays a very important role in our individualistic society and the concept of body image has changed greatly over the years. During the 1700’s and 1800’s, the “ideal” body image was shown to people who tend to be plumper and larger. This was seen as having wealth and being able to feed yourself. Now in 2018, the view on body types has flipped 180 degrees on its back. According to Body Dissatisfaction in Early Adolescence: The Coactive Roles of Cognitive and Sociocultural Factors, “The sociocultural model of body dissatisfaction and disordered eating identifies internalization of society’s idealization of thinness as the driving force behind body dissatisfaction in women” (Striegel-Moore et al. 1986).
Thin-ideal internalization is evident from early childhood, with children as young as four and adults consistently rating thin female bodies as more attractive than “normal” bodies (Brown and Slaughter 2011)” (Jessica F. Saunders). Girls are exposed to, what is perceived as the ideal body for women through social media. Social media helps spread this belief out with photos being shared on apps like Instagram and Facebook of women with slim waistlines and big butts. According to The effect of Instagram “likes” on women’s social comparison and body dissatisfaction, “Participants were 220 female undergraduate students who were randomly assigned to view a set of thin-ideal or average images paired with a low or high number of likes presented in an Instagram frame. Results showed that exposure to thin-ideal images led to a greater body and facial dissatisfaction than average images” (Marika Tiggemann). If women who are in college are dealing with this sort of dissatisfaction with their appearance, just image what young girls could be thinking.
For boys, it is a similar issue. In the past, being big and plump was seen as being very attractive, but now its seen as unappealing. Not only is being fat seen as being unappealing but also being skinny. Social media depicts the ideal body for men as being tone and muscular. According to the article, Internalization of messages from society and perfectionism as predictors of male body image, “Eating disorders and drive for muscularity may both be used to attain the ideal male body as defined by society. This may be due to the dual pressure for men to be lean and muscular. Davis, Karvinen, and McCreary (2005) found that anxiousness, self-oriented perfectionism, and the focus on appearance were directly related to a drive for muscularity in men” (Debbie L.Grammas).
Adolescents are exposed to this sense of perfection through social media. Pictures and videos can persuade men into thinking this, for example, a video of an athlete in competition or a picture of a celebrity working out for a particular movie role. According to Impacts of exposure to images of ideal bodies on male body dissatisfaction: A review, “Currently, societal pressure on men’s appearance is increasing as more and more images of muscular male bodies appear in movies, music videos, commercials, and magazines. Continuous exposure to such images may have profound impacts on men’s body dissatisfaction. With new generations raised in cultures saturated with these images, future increases in male body dissatisfaction may be expected.” (Anna Blond). In turn, males become increasingly competitive and this affects them greatly as it plays a role in everything that they do. They want to be the alpha male and this drive starts at a young age. These kinds of thoughts derived from social media carry over to adulthood.
Being exposed to social media at such a very young age can lead to psychological impairment like eating disorders, early sexual practices, dysmorphophobia or even delusional disorder on adolescents. Adolescents can spend up to hours just staring at themselves in the mirror, hoping that they could be at a certain weight like the people they see on social media. This can lead to a range of eating disorders. To be classified with a form of eating disorder is when someone has “abnormal or disturbed eating habits” according to Dictionary.com. Examples of these types of eating disorders are Anorexia/Orthorexia Nervosa, Muscle Dysmorphia, binge eating etc. Anorexia, being the most known eating disorder, is the fear of gaining any amount of weight and having a desire to stay skinny. Most people with this believe they are overweight when it is the complete opposite. These disorders are strongly linked to social media.
After performing experiments, the article, Sociocultural Appearance Standards and Risk Factors for Eating Disorders in Adolescents and Women of Various Ages, states that “In particular, the findings revealed that the youngest Polish girls reported the highest level of risk factors for eating disorders. Girls aged 12–15 were found to be the least satisfied with their own bodies; meanwhile, compared to older adolescents and young and mature women, the youngest participants also reported significantly higher levels of efforts to become thin, bulimic tendencies, and perfectionism” (Bernadetta Izydorczyk). The connection between social media and eating disorders are direct because of the fact that adolescents are being constantly exposed to it. These adolescents are made to believe that their favorite basketball player or artist is the “personification of perfect”. A combination of all of these issues affects the emotional state of adolescents in a negative way which can ultimately lead to other types of problems later on down the line.
Social media is a place where people can fall into the obsession over the perfect body type that society has implanted in our minds. Social media is basically showing everyone that even being beautiful is not beautiful enough. Many say that social media and its depictions of the ideal body weight creates problems of low self-esteem, eating disorders, poor body concepts, and sexism through spotlighting unattainable body image icons. I believe that adolescents are negatively impacted by social media. Children are so eager to grow up and be just like their idols and all that they witness on social media is all that they know. If they see a picture on Twitter or a photo on Instagram of a woman in a bikini with a slim waist and big butt or a man with a lean cut body, adolescents are going to believe that this is the ideal figure when it does not have to be that way.
It also doesn’t help when there are people in the comment section overly praising their figures and wishing they had that same body. I am not saying there is a problem with getting fit or having a specific goal for the body you would like to acquire, however, worrying about it at such a young age and falling into bad habits is not beneficial at that age in the long run. Social media representations of body image contribute to social trends of unhealthy lifestyles. Although the use of social media can be beneficial to adolescents in some ways, the negative outcomes outweigh the positives.
