Michelle Qian
Senior Thesis | 2024
Visual Representations of the Effect of Media on Teenagers’
Mental Health and Well-being
Michelle Qian
Introduction:
As teenagers in the current society, we are constantly surrounded by all different kinds of media. Whether that is social media, watching TV, or diving into the internet, we’re influenced positively and negatively by everything we are exposed to. The media has taken over this generation, and it is overwhelming because it is so new. I want to raise awareness through my art about how much media mentally affects teenagers through symbols and different representations in my pieces. I know many of my friends and adolescents in our society are impacted in the same ways that I am, and I want to be able to express my feelings using art to show others that they are not alone and make them feel seen.
I took inspiration from my own experiences and emotions, talking to friends, and reading articles to creatively show how the media affects teenagers mentally and in social settings.
The mediums I used included charcoal, soft pastels, acrylic paint, colored pencils, and other mediums. Exploring different mediums and challenging myself to use various mediums allows me to choose the right medium, even if it means using one I have never used before, which is an important aspect of creating the work that I envision in my head. The mediums that I experimented with for the first time through this process were soft pastels, acrylic paint on cell phones, and tape to build figures.
For my process, I brainstormed by writing down my feelings, things I have heard, and pieces of information I have picked out from articles, and I thought about how to turn those into a piece of art. I thought about different symbols I could use as representation, and I made many thumbnail sketches and went on Pinterest for inspiration as well.
The pieces I chose to include in this are the best representations of my own emotions and how adolescents are impacted by the media. I want to be able to advocate for myself and my peers. As an artist, I want to use my art to bring up issues to discuss because teenagers often don’t speak publicly about things they are dealing with. I want to use my art to start conversations and let people know how I feel, which will allow others to feel more comfortable speaking about their own experiences.
First Piece:
Im. 1: Qian. Incognito. 2023
Incognito represents feeling like you have to hide your emotions and your true self. Something teenagers struggle with is trying to fit in and get others to like them. Lauren Sherman’s article “What the brain ‘likes’: Neural correlates of providing feedback on social media” explains how our brain functions when we get likes on social media posts. There are regions of the brain that are more active when we get more likes on our posts, including the amygdala, which regulates emotions. We have a very positive reaction to likes on social media, and this can lead to hiding who we really are (Sherman, 2018). Teenagers pretend to be someone they’re not if they know that it will lead to more positive feedback from others, which is why this piece is called Incognito since it deals with trying to hide your real identity. This is really dangerous because this can lead to people only caring about what other people think, and social media has made us this way.
Michelle Achterberg studied something similar in her article “The neural and behavioral correlates of social evaluation in
childhood.” In an experiment, adolescents were being rejected or approved based on personal profiles online. The participants would get notified if someone rejected them based on their profile. It was shown that there was a lot of reactive aggression because of this, while other regions of the brain were more active when they received positive feedback (Achterberg, 2017). This shows how much people are affected by their peer’s opinions, leading them to change themselves. I decided to represent being incognito with being under blankets. While I was brainstorming I thought of ways to show that you are hiding your emotions or true self, and I thought of blankets because you can hide yourself with them. I used soft pastels for this piece because there were a lot of different fabrics, and soft pastels allowed me to achieve the look of the yarn and fuzzy blankets. It can also lead to putting on a fake smile when really you aren’t happy underneath the covers, so I hope this will let others
know that they aren’t alone in their feelings, and a lot of adolescents are being affected in the same way.
Second Piece:
Im. 2: Qian. Words Can Hurt Me Too. 2023
Words Can Hurt Me Too is inspired by how words can hurt people. I pulled from my own experiences of people who have said harsh things to me, as well as things I have heard being said, and that impact can last forever. We have all heard the saying “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” The truth is that words can destroy lives in a way that sticks or stones cannot. Whether the words come out of someone’s mouth or from a comment online, they can be equally detrimental. In Hong Fan’s “Social media toxicity classification using Deep Learning: Real-World Application UK Brexit,” the toxicity of online comments is explored. The article focuses on Twitter and how people argue and are toxic to each other simply because they can be anonymous online. It also mentions the harmful effects of trolls, who comment in order to instigate arguments and drama (Fan, 2021). Cyberbullying is an extremely dangerous part of the internet, especially because users can be anonymous, and it can have a very negative impact on people.
These experiences can feel like being stabbed by sharp glass, so I smashed jars to get shards of glass to represent hurtful words. I used acrylic paint on canvas; the focus of the painting is on the mouth biting a piece of glass, and the intense contrasts between colors provided by acrylic paint add to the harshness that I am attempting to portray. The close-up of my face also gave me a wide range of colors to capture the texture of my skin.
Third Piece:
Im. 3: Qian. User-unfriendly. 2023
User-unfriendly represents how technology has caused isolation and disconnection between people, as well as anxiety and depression. As technology has continued to develop over the years, real human interactions have decreased.
Tore Bonsaksen’s article “Associations between social media use and loneliness in a cross-national population: Do motives for social media use matter?” explores the connection between media and loneliness two years after the pandemic outbreak. It showed that those who use social media for the purpose of maintaining relationships felt more lonely than those who use it for a different reason. Yes, using social media is a way to maintain social contact, but they will not find the type of contact they are seeking by using social media this way. Also, research has shown that students who use social media for ten minutes every day are significantly less depressed and lonely than those who use it without restrictions (Bonsaksen, 2023).
I collected old cell phones from the early 2000s to represent how we are slowly isolating through the years. I portrayed that isolation by only painting inside the screens of the phones. The blue tones convey the loneliness, and I am worried the loneliness and isolation will only intensify as technology continues to develop. While most of the people painted on the screens are portraits of myself, there are other teenagers depicted as well to show that many people go through the same feelings of loneliness and disconnection. They are painted in a more blue tone than myself to show separation between us.
Fourth Piece:
Im. 4: Qian. $51.8. 2023
This piece is about the portrayal of female bodies in the media. The title represents the percentage of advertisements featuring women that portrayed them as sex objects. I turned the percentage into a price tag because my illustration depicts women’s bodies being “bought”. The media often dehumanizes females and depicts women’s bodies inaccurately, sending the wrong message to young kids.
Stevie Berberick wrote an article called “The Objectification of Women in Mass Media: Female Self-Image In Misogynist Culture” which argues that an “ideal” woman portrayed in the media is very harmful, as well as the media’s objectification of women. The article also states that the objectification of women places states of shame and fear in them, and it promotes the treatment of women as “inhuman playthings.” The media has reduced women throughout the years to being nothing more than “objects to be won, prizes to be shown off, and playthings to be abused.” Young women and teenagers are affected
by how the media portrays them, and it also reinforces ideas in young men (Berberick, 2010).
My painting illustrates the commodification of women with a man’s hand, which represents the media, buying a package of meat that is actually two women’s bodies. I used acrylic paint, and I kept the background simple to keep the focus directly on the women and the hand.
Fifth Piece:
Im. 5: Qian. Feast For One. 2023
Teenagers are also pressured to look a certain way because of the media. It has caused eating disorders in young girls that can affect them for the rest of their lives. Marjorie Hogan’s article states that almost half (46%) of teen girls who took a community survey were unhappy with their bodies, and only 12% reported liking their appearance. The media has pushed out a certain image towards teenagers, making them believe that there is a certain way they should look. Whether teenagers see bodies that are “beautiful” on a movie screen, in magazines, or on television, they are being sent the wrong message, causing depression and poor self-esteem (Hogan, 2008).
Eating disorders can be extremely addictive and secretive, which is why I chose the bathroom as the setting, for it is a very private place. The junk food represents the binge eating that can occur with eating disorders. The messiness adds to the uncomfortable feeling of the viewer and also the person in the drawing. I used charcoal for the black and white background,
making the person and food stand out, which I drew with colored pencils. We need to help those struggling in silence and acknowledge eating disorders as an extremely dangerous and unhealthy condition.
Sixth Piece:
Im. 6: Qian. On My Last Limbs. 2023
This light installation illustrates the draining and exhausting effect of the media. It can be exhausting to constantly text in a group chat or post something on social media. Social media can cause anxiety because of its perceived endlessness, fear of missing out, and demanded attention to notifications. Many social media platforms seem infinite, causing ‘doomscrolling’. On top of this, the frequency of notifications has shown to be stressful for users, even if they are not actively on their phone. One informant in a study mentioned that social media made her feel “drained and useless for wasting so much time”. As a result, social media often results in more lethargy and a sense of “lifelessness”
(Lupinacci, 2021).
To portray these feelings, I made an assortment of different body parts that look like they are melting; the hands represent the desperation for help by reaching up out of the ground. I used layers of tape around my and my sister’s bodies to create the different parts. I experimented with a lot of different papers to create the
effect I wanted. I tried tissues, toilet paper, tissue paper, and rice paper. I ended up using tissue paper because the light shined through at the right level of transparency. I used the walls in the studio to attach some floating pieces, adding some dimension to the piece. The person standing the most upright is the highest, and the objects get more fragmented towards the ground.
Seventh Piece:
Im. 6: Qian. Insomnia. 2023
This piece portrays the feeling of being unable to sleep. Approximately 95% of teenagers in the U.S. own a smartphone, of which 44% checked their social media several times a day. This data shows the degree to which individuals feel the need to have a continual connection with social media. Maladaptive use of social media can lead to social media fatigue, a “fear of missing out” (FoMO), and trouble sleeping. Smartphones project a blue light that suppresses melatonin production, negatively affecting our circadian rhythms. More phone usage leads to decreased drowsiness, longer sleep latency periods, and poor sleep quality. FoMo from social media can cause anxiety, stress, or guilt, due to the disconnect. Peer pressure can also drive teenagers to engage in social media at night and not consider going to bed later as problematic (Tandon, 2020).
Some teenagers find themselves unable to sleep because of anxiety, stress, and overthinking tendencies. We get stressed about an exam we have the next day, something that happened with a
friend, or conflicts at home. Social media doesn’t help relieve any of this, although many of us go on our phones before going to bed. The piece depicts my hair strewn about from tossing and turning in bed. I used charcoal because keeping the drawing black and white shows that it’s nighttime, and it creates a dark, uneasy feeling to depict the restlessness.
Conclusion:
My art-making process was long and tedious, but I grew tremendously as an artist. I became more comfortable with drawing techniques that allowed me to get works done quicker, and I grew more confident in my abilities, making me less nervous to make mistakes. Every single piece took a lot of researching and brainstorming, which improved my creative thinking skills. I learned a lot about certain issues concerning different types of media and then applied those ideas to make strong, interesting works of art. I explored many new mediums in my process as well. There was a lot of trial and error when it came to my light installation because I had never done such a big 3-D project on my own. I look forward to continuing my art journey by strengthening my skills and making more creative pieces in the future.
References
Sherman, Lauren E, et al. “What the brain ‘likes’: Neural correlates of providing feedback on social media.” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, vol. 13, no. 7, 2018, pp. 699–707, https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsy051.
Achterberg, Michelle, et al. “The neural and behavioral correlates of social evaluation in childhood.” Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, vol. 24, 2017, pp. 107–117, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2017.02.007.
Fan, Hong, et al. “Social media toxicity classification using Deep Learning: Real-World Application UK Brexit.”
Electronics, vol. 10, no. 11, 2021, p. 1332, https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics10111332.
Bonsaksen, Tore, et al. “Associations between social media use and loneliness in a cross-national population: Do motives for social media use matter?” Health Psychology and
Behavioral Medicine, vol. 11, no. 1, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1080/21642850.2022.2158089.
Berberick, Stevie. “The Objectification of Women in Mass Media: Female Self-Image in Misogynist Culture.” The New York Sociologist, vol. 5, 2010.
Hogan, Marjorie. “Body Image, Eating Disorders, and the Media.” Adolesc Med, vol. 19, 2008.
Lupinacci, L. “‘Absentmindedly scrolling through nothing’: liveness and compulsory continuous connectedness in social media.” Media, Culture & Society, 43(2), 273-290.
2021. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443720939454.
Tandon, Anushree, et al. “Sleepless due to Social Media? Investigating Problematic Sleep due to Social Media and Social Media Sleep Hygiene.” Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 113, no. 106487, July 2020.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074756322030 2399, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106487.