YOU CANNOT BELIEVE EVERYTHING THAT YOU SEE ONLINE
How Social Media is Affecting Body Image Throughout Adolescents
Confidence Killer
As shown in the image above, you can see that not everything that we see on the internet is real. Influencer, Tana Mongeau, is guilty of facetuning most of her pictures online to make it appear "socially acceptable" This being a problem due to the fact that people compare themselves to what they see on social media. When images are fake or highly edited, people are comparing themselves to an unrealistic version of someone else, judging themselves off of someone who is not authentic in their ways. Setting body goals like this can be very damaging to a young mind due to how they perceive themselves.
INSTAGRAM VERSUS REALITY
How is it Affecting Young Users?
There was a study done showcasing the affect that social media has on the youth. There were 101 seventh grade participants, half of which used social media, half of which were not engaged, and they were told to answer questions regarding body image. After this experiment, researchers found that, “girls who regularly shared self-images on social media, relative to those who did not, reported significantly higher overvaluation of shape and weight, body dissatisfaction, dietary restraint, and internalization of the thin ideal,” (McLean, Paxton, Wertheim, Masters 2015).
