The Negative Effects Of Social Media And Body Image

According to recent research, the tremendous exposure to the media has a negative impact in the consumers and their health, as well as their body image. The ideal body image that is seen by today’s society is tall, thin, muscular, and fit. It is constantly advertised in various forms of media including, such as televisions, magazines, internet, and smartphone devices, which make others feel insecure about appearance and health. The constant reinforcement of the ideal body image throughout the media negatively impacts society through self-esteem, rise of self-enhancements, and health. There are many different factors that play a role in obtaining the ideal body image that meets the society’s norm.

Throughout the years, the definition of beauty constantly changes. In our society today many children are told to be true to themselves, to be unique, to be who they are, etc.; But on the other hand social media and the celebrities on there are a constant reminder that there is a certain type of beautiful. The juxtaposition between being yourself and being what is “beautiful” has consistent grey areas and blurred lines making it almost impossible to keep up with what’s “beautiful”. The media, whether intentional or not, portrays this certain body image that you have to be in order to qualify as beautiful.

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.

There are countless sources that show research on how girls’ body image is destroyed over time on social media. By middle school, 40-70 percent of students do not like how two or more of their body parts look (NYC). Over 70 percent of students out of highschool admit that they feel worse about their bodies after looking at their social media (Klein). It has also been found the body image hits “rock

As technology editing tools have become even more prevalent, many feel the need to excessively use photoshop before they share an image online. In a pervasive world where images of unrealistic standards fuel the media on how one should look, social media has one of the most significant impacts on body dissatisfaction. Throughout the last decade, social media has become one of the most common and favored ways for people to communicate, connect, and share. Thus, there have been many debates and discussions on whether the media has a positive or a negative impact on the way an individual perceives him or herself. As the rapid growth of smartphone usage among adolescents and adults has increased, social media has become an essential part of one’s daily life. In today's society, when most adolescents and adults turn on their smartphones, often times, the first thing they will refer to is a social media site. It has become a place where they are exposed to news, images, and expectations. Often times, these images, ideals, and expectations are ingrained in their brain and bombarded with what is considered to be beautiful. Moreover, these unrealistic standards will often lead to a form of comparison, influencing them to take extreme measures. Although social media serves as a platform where people can connect, communicate, and share, it has a negative impact on one’s body image, because it can lead to a lack of self confidence and severe

The source discuss the effect that the media has on body image. The writer of Media and Body Image said that "the major reason many people has a negative body image is because of the impact that the media have had on our perception of body image" (Walden Center, n.d.). This statements shows us that the media finds thinness attractive, so they promote thin body has the one body type that is beautiful knowing that there are many types that are beautiful. What we see on social media is something that could actually not be real, most of the actors and actresses that we would see on television could actually

Many teens center a large part of their self-image on the way their body looks, a negative self-image may be linked to depression, anxiety, and eating disorders, and mental health problems. People with eating disorders generally have a negative body image and social media doesn't help because they are constantly comparing themselves to other people. In American society, messages about what the perfect body looks like are constantly delivered by the mass media. Television, movies, magazines, the Internet, and advertisements show us what society views as a perfect body—the ideal we should strive for. In the 1920’s two major changes happened in women’s lives the first thing was they got the right to vote and there was a mass production of clothes. With these changes no one was alike anymore and that’s when self-image came about. As the years went on self-image became more important and fashion models set standards of how people were supposed to look. For example Twiggy was 5’7 and weighed 91 pounds, many teenage girls tried to achieve the “Twiggy look” by dieting and that made many people have a negative body-image. Today’s models haven’t changed much they still are trying to achieve the “Twiggy look” but now their body-image is more positive and models take positive and negative criticisms

According to a study performed by Brown and Witherspoon, “on average, a child or adolescent watches up to 5 hours of television per day and spends an average of 6 to 7 hours viewing various media combined” (Morris and Katzman 1).Young people consume huge amounts of media per day, more than most other groups. This statistic means that they are exposed to standards in the media a lot more, allowing for the media to have a pretty heavy impact on them. Not only are adolescents more exposed to the media, but they are also at a very impressionable time in their lives. A lot of young women and girls think that they are overweight, even if most of them are within normal weight ranges; “44% of adolescent girls believed they were overweight and 60% were actively trying to lose weight,” according to one study (Morris and Katzman 2). Even without accounting for the possible effect of the media, negative body image or low self-esteem is an epidemic amongst a lot of young girls that have no physical reason to lose weight. But because young girls are the most impressionable group of people, there is a veritable plethora of possible causes to the increase in negative body image in adolescents that may include the

We see ‘ideal selfs’ on the television, so when we log into Facebook, or Twitter, we too create ‘ideal selfs’. If we look at media creating negative self-esteem, the main demographic it effects is women aged about 14-18. Girl Guiding, an organization created for promoting girl’s voices and opinions to be heard conducted a survey, called the Girl’s Attitude Survey. This survey included girls from 11- 21. In 2009, 36% of girls from 11-16 were unhappy with their looks. 1 in 6 girls said they were worried they would develop an eating disorder. They asked girls from 10-21 what aspect they would like to change about themselves. 33% of girls 16-21 wanted to be thinner, compared to 17% of girls 11-13. 66% of girls 16-21 have watched what they were eating, or cut down on their diet. In 2013, 87% of girls from 11-21 thought they were judged more on their appearance and looks than their ability. 80% of the same demographic believe that the media places too much discussion on the bodies and weight of girls and 71% of girls say they would like to lose weight. 31% of girls from 16-21 considered cosmetic surgery, and 47% of girls from 11-16 are unhappy about their looks. You can see that through the years, girls have become more body conscious, and mostly in a negative way.

Approximately 14 million U.S. teenage girls don’t like how they look. The number of women who feel confident in their bodies is dwindling quickly and is being fueled by edited pictures they are comparing themselves to on social media. The Time magazine article “How Social Media Is a Toxic Mirror” by Rachel Simmons tells of the risk for everyone to feel self-conscious about their bodies. However, those most at risk are teenage girls who spend a significant amount of time on any form of social media. In response to the article, I agree with the negative effects social media has on the body image of teenage girls because I have seen girls trying to change their bodies. I also see the effects logos and pathos have on the strength of the article and what would make it a stronger and more credible source for information on teen body image.

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

“When close to 2,000 women in the United States were surveyed in the years 2010-2011, only 12.2% were found to be satisfied with their body sizes” (Whyte, Newman, Voss 822). There are many negative effects on women starting at younger and younger ages because of the body image that is portrayed in the media. Being exposed to the media at a young age makes girls more vulnerable to what they see and hear which makes this a long-term problem. Seeing models, women believe these pictures to be “ideal” and compare themselves to that. They can even compare themselves to their peers which could lead to bullying. Some girls do not realize that the models are not portrayed as a real, average women. Their

Social media has become one of the most popular sources of communication for the upcoming generation. For young people growing up in today’s society, social media outlets such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have provided pictures and news that have become the first thing that their eyes see in the morning and the last thing that they see before bed. These pictures have provided unrealistic standards as to what is considered beautiful in today’s society. As young people refer to these images as a form of comparison, it has created harmful circumstances. These influences on the lives of young people have forced them to take extreme measures and in some cases, has been the cause of death. Social media in today’s society has proven to

There is no denying that social media: Instagram and Tumblr, has a significant influence on all of us. The current effects of social media have increased dramatically among young women aged between 15 and 25. As stated in the study by (Grabe, Ward, & Hyde, 2008) that the high exposure to social media portraying the thin-ideal body may be linked to body image disturbance in young women. They used a meta-analysis examined experimental and correlation studies testing the links between media exposure to young women's body dissatisfaction and the unconscious behavior towards having a thin ideal body. The results by (Grabe, Ward, & Hyde, 2008) support the claim that high exposure to social media images depicting the thin-ideal body is related to

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