Social Media Has a Negative Effect on Body Image and Self Esteem

Throughout the recent decades, people have been obsessing more and more over their bodies and physical appearances. In the mainstream media, people described as “attractive” are the ones with thin figures, long hair, and perfect complexions (Media’s Influence on Beauty). If one is pleasing to the eye, one is accepted in society. However, the standards that social media is placing on body image today is becoming a big controversy. The media is responsible for creating the epitome of beauty and the perfect body image. “Images portrayed by the media tend to make people strive to be someone else's idea of perfect while subconsciously ignoring their own goals” (The Media and Body Image). People are suffering

More than half of our society is using some kind of social media. It is transforming the way many people live their lives. Many people around the world let it make life changing decisions for themselves. Visually oriented social media websites are particularly popular among teenagers. This type of platform can and does have a significant impact on teenage boys and girls body images. Most girls and boys prioritize certain body types as more appealing than others. The impact this has had on the development of poor body image as well as eating disorders are dramatic. Even though social expectations do not direct that woman and men change themselves, the media negatively affects body image; this often results in disorders and unrealistic expectations.

Social media creates an ideal body image in an adolescent’s mind that affects them in various ways. Having an ideal body image can lower self-esteem in some adolescents’ creating eating disorders, and this idea of getting plastic surgery as they get older. Social media is steadily increasing and has heavily influenced adolescent’s to be more aware of their body figure. As a result, many adolescent’s have developed low self-esteem due to the fact that social media continues promoting fit women and creating the idea that women need to be thin to be loved or accepted by society; this can cause harm to adolescent’s because they feel the need to fit in to society.

The ideal body image that is seen by society is being tall, thin, muscular, and fit. It is commonly seen across various media platforms, making it more popular. The group of people that are targeted ranges from teenagers to adults who engaged in social networking websites (Fardouly and et, al.). The increase in media consumption has proven that it leads to body dissatisfaction among consumers. A statistic from Body Image shows, “Similarly, 90% of 16-24 year olds in the United Kingdom (Office for National Statistics, 2013), and 90% of 18-29 year olds in the United States (Pew Research, 2013a), use social networking websites” (Fardouly and et, al.). The amount of exposure to social media is relatively high in a particular age. These social networking websites have images that are constantly

In recent years, social media has flown to increasing popularity. People spend hours scrolling their Instagram feed “touching up” their pictures to put forth their best looks, updating their Snapchat stories and sending messages with funny faces to friends, trying to stay connected to the world. Social media stars have found a new array of followers and idolizers. All over the world, people inspire to be like that one person with 3,000 followers or 8 million comparing their dazzling looks to their own dull appearance. Although media can help connect the world, it also forces people to compare themselves to others; Social media is a toxic playing field for young women because these comparisons bring low self-esteem and a rise in mental illness.

Social media is used as a platform to popularize trends, leading to people trying to fit in. In the article Negative effects social media causes on body image by Katelyn Gaffney says “There is always some new trend to follow because of social media, which is forever changing. Showing what is “In” currently according to social media. Society is always shown something new in looks, fashion, and appearance in doing this women are always on their toes to fit the new standards caused by media. One month it could be large breast, and in a snap the new “In” could be completely flat chested. Today the biggest fad is being very curvy with a small waist. Before we could know it social media could change that to being extremely skinny with minimalistic

Finally, social media has become a way individuals negatively judge themselves as inferior to others. Americans have taken extreme actions to live up to the impractical social expectations. This is connected to self-esteem and to the individual’s emotions. People change their image for society acceptance, and personal acceptance, because many want to fit the image social media says is right. An article published by CNN states that “the more time adolescent spent on Facebook, the more likely they were to develop a negative body image and eating disorders” (Mary). A person’s body changes from day to day, a lot of people think they are overweight, ugly, etc. which in reality they almost certainly aren’t. They are used to what society says one

Social media is a visible platform that displays the “ideal image” of beauty. These “ideal images” of beauty have been obtained by means of manipulation, photo shopping, plastic surgery, or extreme measures of dieting. The negative impact of social media is at the root of a number of issues that surround teens and women. One of the biggest issues teens and women are dealing with is the constant pressure of comparing themselves to these “ideal images” on social media. Although women are subjected to the negative side effects of social media my research is mainly geared towards teen age girls.

Is there too much pressure on girls to have perfect bodies? People are worried about their body image,which is putting them in a dangerous position for anorexia,or using laxatives to lose weight.Media puts intense pressure on girls today to look like the “ideal” image.The medias harmful effect on self body image and self esteem has brought three damaging effects:eating disorders,mental depression,and physical depression.The media is always putting a new form of pills to lose weight.Many girls have been choosing the easy way to lose weight by starving themselves.Girls may try fasting or purging,because media-portrayed thin body ideal is related to eating pathology.Association between risk for disordered eating and subsequent thinnes expected

What impact does social media have in our lives? Does it affect us in a way that’s damaging to our health? I believe that social media is promoting society’s standards of ‘perfection’ that causes others to feel bad about themselves, and may lead to harmful thoughts/actions such as low self-esteem and eating disorders. In this generation, we have new technology that’s so advanced that almost everyone has a smartphone, with access to social media.

It is not an uncommon occurrence nowadays that a teenager will go online. With endless social media platforms at the new generations’ fingertips and the accessibility of the Internet practically everywhere, it is easy to be consumed by technology without even realizing it. The adolescents, especially females, go on Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and many more on a daily basis to see countless photoshopped and filtered pictures of “perfection.” Images of flawless and unattainable bodies create an expectation of beauty. Gradually, the once beautiful and naive girl slowly doubts herself and her confidence plummets as she enters the world of reality. She learns what society expects of her because she of her gender as a girl and tries to change

Many theories have been presented on how the media is the most pervasive source in shaping our perception of body image. As presented by the author Kasey L. Serdar in the Article, Female Body Image and the Mass Media: Perspectives on How Women Internalize the Ideal Beauty Standard, the media can consciously or unconsciously affect our vision of the ideal body through, mainly displaying women who meet the socialcultural standard of beauty, or by simply referring to the represented ideal body image as a reference point in constructing their objective body. This controlling source affects us to the extent of changing; our culture's perception by creating a society obsessed with appearance, our economy

In today’s society, the public is exposed to technology at even younger ages than ever before. Everywhere you go these days you see kids even as little as three holding their parent’s phones or even their own, watching videos or playing games. But as said in the article Does Social media impact on body image by Philippa Roxby, as kids start becoming teenagers their technological uses advance and they start to rely on social media sites for new sources of communication, and their main channel to the outside world. Based on studies conducted by psychologists they have come up with a conclusion that social media has a direct relationship to body image concerns. I believe that in today’s society we should focus on promoting self-confidence as most of the adolescents have a very low assurance of their own bodies. Although a study conducted in the article The Upside of Selfies: Social media isn’t all bad for kids by Kelly Wallace says that a survey which resulted in 52% of the teens saying that social media positively influences them. Even though social media platforms have some beneficial aspects such as they make people want to go on diets, exercise, and eating healthy, the teenagers don’t really look/understand the negative aspects of it. The impacts that are carried with social media are mostly negative such as fancying teenagers to lose confidence in themselves and has become a toxic mirror to them. The visual platforms impact

The topic under review is how social media effects girls self esteems all round. Social media is websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking. It is quickly evolving, There are millions of users on each individual social media app. Mass media consists of radio, music, instagram, facebook, twitter, snapchat, TV, newspapers and various outlets used for advertising. Girls self esteems can either be positively affected by mass media or negatively affected. Girls in general are shown what the "perfect body is". This being shown on the TV as soon as it is put on about the way you should look or looking in a magazine that is filled with photo shopped models. When girls look at these images their self confidence drops to a complete low and according to (Miribel Tran, 2014) social media causes massive amounts of depression in young teenage girls and then depression is linked with obesity which is ultimately affecting the health of young girls. As a society we should not be creating images in young girls minds as they should be happy in their own skin and be proud of their image.

A large part of today’s society is very impressionable. With the media and social media at every corner, from supermarket shelves to your very own phone, the media has a way of influencing how we live our daily lives. Amongst everyone, young women are the most impressionable, this contributing to the rise in “[e]lective cosmetic surgeries, particularly breast implant surgeries among young women, have risen steadily since the year 2000” (Stephanie E. Moser, and Leona S. Aiken, n.pag.). Young women often find themselves comparing themselves to models in magazines or even to their close peers, social media being the hub for anyone to upload images onto social network sites like twitter, facebook, instagram, and so on. Seeing all these things often leaves these teens feeling as if they’re not up to par with society’s standards,