Body image

Social Media and Self-Esteem

From filters to photoshop, people online can manage to always look unrealistically perfect. But how does that damage everyday people’s self-image? By Michelle Des Rivieres

@ CreativeCommons

@CreativeCommons

@ CreativeCommons

As prevalent as social media is nowadays, it’s almost impossible to escape. It’s become a normal part of our everyday lives. However, the distortion of reality that occurs online has set an unrealistic standard that normal teens are struggling to live up to.

Screen time among teens has been consistently on the rise, and the pandemic has only exacerbated this issue, bringing the average to around 8 hours per day according to USA Today. A majority of this time is spent on various forms of social media, king among them being Instagram. Teens today use these platforms to interact with their friends and family, but also to consume content from online communities. These can be centered around interest in a show or movie franchise, or a particular style/aethstetic.

Some of these, however, are centered solely around physical appearance. The #fitspo, #thinspo, #bodygoals communities are meant to inspire people to work on their fitness and improve their bodies. Junior Faith Grathwol said that she looks at these types of hashtags when scrolling through social media. However, these communities often portray people with unrealistically perfect bodies. Either with photoshop or an extremely regimented lifestyle, these influencers are able to achieve a look that most of us can only dream of. But has it really gone that far?

We all want to portray our best self online, whether that’s only showing the parts of our lives that are exciting or only posting pictures where we feel we look good. But with face filters and photoshop, we are not only able to look like the best versions of ourselves, but like other people entirely. A majority of photos posted by big celebrities and influencers are retouched in some way. Erasing flaws, accentuating their good features, slimming down or adding weight where they want it. Eventually we start to forget what real people actually look like. We grow used to this unrealistic and idealized version of the human form, and it begins to become the norm. So when we compare our real, flawed, unedited selves to these pictures, we feel inadequate because we don’t look like that. No one does. Not even the people we’re comparing to ourselves do. For example, Junior Taliana Sellner stated, “I feel like I’m tall compared to a lot of people, and social media makes it seem like being tall is bad.”

But is this really such a big deal? What are the long term effects? Well, one of the main effects of consuming content like this is body dysmorphia. According to Hopkins Medicine, “Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a mental health problem. If you have BDD, you may be so upset about the appearance of your body that it gets in the way of your ability to live normally…you may find that negative thoughts about your body are hard to control. You may even spend hours each day worrying about how you look. Your thinking can become so negative and persistent, you may think about suicide at times.”

Body dysmorphia often causes people to see their body in a skewed light, seeing themselves as less attractive than they actually are. For instance, Senior David Reiten stated, “I think I’m a lot smaller and less muscular than I actually am.”

Extreme and persistent body dysmorphia can lead to eating disorders. Due in part to social media, these kinds of disorders are on the rise. As stated in Life Sciences Journal, “NHS Digital released data in 2018 that showed the number of hospital admissions due to eating disorders had doubled in six years, with 16,000 people admitted for some type of eating disorder in the United Kingdom over that time period.”

More and more, people are willing to go to extreme lengths to achieve beauty and body standards. Cautiously approaching social media and remembering that most posts are altered and retaken until the owner is satisfied helps keep viewers in more positive frame of minds regarding their own body image.