Understanding Connection between Body Image and Social Media
Research Objective: Understanding the impact of social media on perceptions of body image of teenagers
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In the current times, social media is a huge part of people’s lives and influences their daily lives in some way or the other. Keeping that in mind, this research report focuses on analysing the role of social media on body image and its role in creating body image issues among teenagers. There is also a focus on the role of social media in creating body image challenges among different genders and different age groups, as well as how social media might be affecting their mental health. The positive and negative effects of social media and how an individual perceives their body are the objectives of this research report. The main objective for conducting this research was to understand different groups of people’s outlook on the benefits or challenges that might come with the growth of social media.
With the research objectives in mind, a questionnaire was drafted in such a way as to ensure safety and anonymity of the respondents if required given that it included questions of personal nature. This questionnaire was then shared widely with friends and families through an online platform.
The research showed that social media negatively impacts people and creates an ideal body image which is unrealistic or difficult to attain for common people. Given that the questionnaire was shared through an online platform, the samples were limited to people who had access to digital media. Furthermore, the proportion of female respondents was higher which did not allow for a more holistic understanding of body image issues that people of other genders face. Thus, the primary research showed that people engaging with social media more often in a day were more likely to be influenced by it and have body image issues as a result of the same which could take a toll on one’s mental health.
INTRODUCTION
Body image is an issue we felt strongly about. Thus, we decided to conduct this research because as a group of teenagers, we wanted to become more aware of the impact of social media on different people. The purpose of this research was to understand and analyse how the concept of having a perfect body is misinterpreted by people because of social media and its impact on people’s views of their own bodies. Furthermore, the research focused on how being healthy is confused with being thin and how having a perfect body is believed to be the ultimate goal. Additionally, it also set out to find how included or excluded the LGBT (Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community or anybody who identifies themselves as a gender minority feels going on social media and whether social media is accepting of their community.
Thus, the primary issues we focused on for the research were:
- How teenagers (aged 13 to 19) are influenced by social media
- How it is felt by a majority of people that social media stereotypes body image based on gender and subjects people to hate comments if they do not adhere to the stereotypical ideals, thus adding more pressure
- How people feel the need to dress a certain way because of their gender or to fit in with society’s definitions of the ideal body
Research done by King University showed that Instagram can empower users as stated by Sarah Gervais, Ph.D. of psychology. It also explored how social media can trigger eating and psychological disorders and can end intensify pre-existing mental health conditions.
Another research by the magazine Insider claimed that “research found that the more time you spend on social media the more likely you are to feel worse about your body. However, social media can also help your body image if you use it wisely just make sure to follow body positive accounts and take routine breaks from social media”
An article by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) stated: “Facebook causes someone to have negative feelings about their appearance, or whether people who are concerned about their appearance are more likely to use Facebook. That being said, using social media does appear to be correlated with body image concerns. A systematic review of 20 papers published in 2016 found that photo-based activities, like scrolling through Instagram or posting pictures of yourself, were a particular problem when it came to negative thoughts about your body.”
All these findings lead us to question why people feel influenced by a stranger on the Internet whom they do not know. This is because people open up only about certain parts of their lives that they feel secure and happy about and so it is likely that somebody you see on the internet that you consider to have the perfect body might be facing body image issues themselves ironically.
Additionally, different genders (male, female, and non-binary) are differently affected by social media. Information on social media is often misinterpreted and leads people to change the way they look or dress on the basis of their gender. People falling in the non-binary category may feel reluctant to share their lives on social media. Even in the 21st century, they might fear being judged on online platforms.
This report will shed light on how the influence of social media is so powerful that people tend to change things about themselves and feel insecure about their bodies. Thus, it shows us that hence these topics need immediate attention as they are causing a negative effect on the society as a whole. The report will study the role of social media in how different age groups and different genders perceive their body.
METHODOLOGY
Body image is a multidimensional construct defined by persons’ perceptions of and attitudes about their body. Although the sexes differ on some parameters of body image, the present experiment was conducted to determine the manner and extent to which the sexes are socially perceived to differ.
In the research we conducted, we sent out a questionnaire to different people we knew. While drafting the questionnaire, the main focus was on adhering to questions which would shed light on the research objectives for this paper. Furthermore, we ensured that the questions were specific so as to not leave any room for misinterpretation as that would skew results of the questionnaire. The focus was also on choosing questions which would give us a clear perspective of the individual’s ideas of body image. After receiving responses to the questionnaire, we came to a conclusion after reviewing and studying their responses and their perspectives on body image.
The questionnaire focused on important questions which helped us to come to a conclusion without any disturbances and distractions. We tried to avoid questions which could trigger any person/community; moreover, we kept the questions neutral which led to more people answering it. The main objective of our research was to find the impact of social media on teenagers with regard to their body image. So we mainly aimed to ask questions which were directly related to perceptions of body image.
Teenagers on social media spend much of their time observing the lives and images of their peers. Therefore, this leads to constant comparisons which can damage self-esteem and body image. Moreover, it can lead to depression. For many teens, social media can become almost addictive.
In a study by researchers at the UCLA Brain Mapping Centre, they found that certain regions of teen brains became activated by “likes” on social media, sometimes causing them to want to use social media more. When social media users receive positive feedback (likes), their brains fire off dopamine receptors, which is facilitated in part by the VTA (Ventral Tegmental Area). Another study that employed the use of MRI technology to monitor brain activity found similar results.
Although body image concerns are not a mental health condition in themselves, they can be a risk factor for mental health problems such as poorer quality of life, psychological distress, and unhealthy behaviours including eating disorders.
Modern media and social media constantly bombard us with images of idealised bodies. For women, the emphasis is on slimness (veering on thinness), youthfulness (characterised by firm flesh) and flawlessness (albeit cosmetically and/or digitally enhanced). For men, the ideal is characterised by a muscular, v-shaped body, flat stomach, and narrow hips (Leit, Pope, & Gray, 2001). These idealised standards of beauty have become the norm to which many of us compare ourselves, yet remain unattainable for the vast majority. In addition to the impact of exposure to images of idealised bodies through the media, many socio-cultural factors influence how we feel about our bodies. For example, our relationships with friends, families and how these significant others speak about their bodies and appearance, influence our perception of our own body and appearance. Fortunately, many psychologists, medics and other professionals are working to support people with poor body image, but until the causes are eliminated or at least reduced, the problem remains and is becoming increasingly urgent.
Apart from surveying our respondents with a questionnaire, secondary research was undertaken to understand the issue in-depth and to understand the effects of body image issues on a wider scale.
Since the questionnaire was shared among people we personally knew, they came from a socio-economic background similar to ours. In order to gain a more holistic understanding of the issue at hand (body image and how people deal with it), we interacted with and conducted workshops for students from Pratyek, who belong to lower socio-economic backgrounds. We analysed their thinking and their points of view by asking them different scenarios related to body image and discussed body image and its effect on mental health. The discussions were divided in 2 classes which were inspiring and motivating. The response from the students was motivating and the interactions were enriching. The discussions showed that many of them were aware of the issues of body image stereotyping.
Through our primary research, we were able to conclude that most people think that women are the most judged for their looks and they are more compelled to dress and look a certain way according to societal norms and standards.
There were a few limitations to our research including the following:
- We were not able to reach out to a wider audience due to the COVID-19 pandemic and had to limit ourselves to respondents through an online survey
- There were also time constraints which narrowed the time we could spend on our research
ANALYSIS
The research paper looked at understanding the impact social media has on the body image of teenagers given the prevalence of social media in today’s day and age.
We were able to receive responses from many parts of the world. 41.3% of the respondents were from outside India (a few of the countries are shown in the chart above). This allowed for us to have a lot of diversity in our responses and thus, allowed us to get many different perspectives as well. We had maximum respondents from the age group 16-19.
We had a majority of females fill the questionnaire. This most likely occurred since from our findings, boys were more hesitant to answer questions (this finding has been derived from the analysis of each individual respondent’s answers). Deborah Tannen (an American author and a professor of linguistics) suggests that men and women view the purpose of conversation differently: men tend to see the purpose of many interpersonal conversations as negotiating for status in the social hierarchy, which they do by “exhibiting knowledge and skill, and by holding center stage through verbal performance such as storytelling, joking or imparting information,” Tannen writes in her book You Just Don’t Understand.
All our respondents used some form of social media. 67.6% of them used social media all the time, 29.6% used it sometimes, and the rest used it rarely.
When asked if they thought social media stereotypes body image on the basis of gender, 51.9% of the respondents answered “Yes, sometimes.” 27.8% (30 people) of them said a firm “Yes, all the time” while 1 person answered with a firm “No”. 13% of the people were not sure about this answer. This might be a result of lack of awareness.
When we asked people whether they had ever received negative comments on their posts online, 27.8% of people (30 people) answered in the affirmative. The respondents were asked why they thought some people posted rude comments on others’ posts. Although the following question was meant for the people who replied “yes” to the previous question, there were 36 responses for this question. Many people replied saying that it was due to jealousy or hate while others said it was because people wanted their egos to be satisfied. A few others said that such people feel bolder on the internet since they can hide their identity by making anonymous comments or creating fake online accounts for the sole purpose of spreading negativity. Additionally, there were some people who said that sometimes people’s comments could be mistaken as a “rude” or “mean” comment since in the online world, people might not understand the tone of the comment which might lead to misunderstandings.
The next question, which was “Have you ever thought you had to dress a particular way because of your gender?”, was a fairly distributed one. 30.6% replied “all the time”, 30.6% replied “sometimes” while 25% replied never. This shows that quite a lot of people are influenced by their environments.
Only 13% of the respondents replied “all the time” when asked if they use face filters to look a certain way. This is a positive result as it shows that many people are comfortable with the way they look and do not feel the need to change how they look.
Social media has a great impact on the way we look. Many famous influencers like Kylie Jenner or the Kardashians underwent plastic surgery at a young age. Kylie Jenner first began at the age of 17 with lip fillers. Thus, a lot of teenagers now might believe that it is okay to undergo such surgeries simply because a famous person went through it too. This can be both dangerous and life-threatening if done under the wrong conditions. While the surgery itself might not be harmful, some people are not suited for plastic surgery at certain ages. Thus, because they are influenced by social media, teenagers can put their health at risk by performing such surgeries at such young ages.
CONCLUSION
In today’s day and age with social media having become such an integral part of people’s lives, this research report aimed to examine the impact of it on body image and the emergence of body image concerns among teenagers. We conducted a survey using a short questionnaire for our target audience. After collecting its data and analysing it, we were able to draw clear conclusions as to what we have found from this research.
It is evident that teenagers or adolescents spend a lot of their time on social media (as shown in chart 1) and can alter and expand their knowledge and perspective about / on social media influencers, etc. despite the fact that they said they are never impacted by influencers portrayed in magazines and movies when it comes to how they perceived themselves. Furthermore, adolescents seem to have similar body image issues regardless of their socio-economic backgrounds. While the source of such issues are majorly the mass media for those from the lower socio-economic strata, social media is mainly the cause of body image issues for those belonging to other socio-economic strata. Our data is well rounded as we had respondents from several countries around the world.
Authors: Amatra Ivaturi, Arianna Mehta, Riddhima Gupta, Suhani Kapoor, Nitya Kamulkar
REFERENCES
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6159863/
- https://behavioralscientist.org/who-asks-questions-and-what-it-tells-us/
- https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/
- https://www.bps.org.uk/blogs/guest/influence-body-image-mental-health
- https://online.king.edu/news/social-media-and-body-image/
- https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190311-how-social-media-affects-body-image
- https://www.insider.com/how-social-media-affects-body-image