If only I were more blonde, I’d be prettier; like her. If I lost 5 pounds I’d look good in those jeans, like her. If I looked like her, I’d be happier. These are the suffocating thoughts a girl experiences daily. As a girl growing up in the era of technology, social media has personally affected my own image of myself in countless ways, as well as my sister and friends. I see my sister comparing herself to others and tell her to stop; but how can I preach self-love when I struggle with comparing myself as well? Always wishing to be or look like someone else has caused a lack of self-worth as well as an increase in eating disorders, all thanks to social media. When will we learn to be happy with who we are? Maybe it’s not when but how do we learn to love ourselves?
In an ideal world, we’d like to think that our mornings are filled with productivity, and for some they may be. Whether that’s drinking a fresh cup of coffee on the porch, reading a book, taking a walk, or going to the gym. Unfortunately this is not the case for most of us, especially teenage girls. Within seconds of waking up, we gravitate to our phones aimlessly scrolling instagram and vsco, already comparing our mornings to someone else's. From an early age, girls face the pressure to uphold the standard of being beautiful. However, today’s culture has failed to emphasize that beauty can not be measured or compared, rather it comes from within. With technology’s role in our world today, it makes it impossible to escape the expectation to look like the models in magazines or compare oneself to influencers on instagram, posing a great danger to girls’ self-image. Pilar Aparicio-Martinez asserts in her article, “Social Media, Thin-Ideal, Body Dissatisfaction and Disordered Eating Attitudes: An Exploratory Analysis” ( Oct. 29, 2019) that the unattainable body standards the media advertises plays a pivotal role on how girls view themselves. Pilar’s assertion stems from analysis of the media’s effect on society’s perception of beauty along with statistics regarding the rise of eating disorders within the past decade. In order to start changing the mindsets of young girls, we must expose the power media holds when formulating beauty standards and educate on how the rise of social media has become a risk factor for eating disorders. Moreover, in her article, “Social Media and Its Effect on Eating Disorders” (10 May 2017) Greta Gleissner, founder of Eating Disorder Recovery Specialists; a network of eating disorder specialists providing nationwide meal support and coaching programs, discusses how social media has made it impossible to escape the pressures of having the perfect body and has become a major risk factor for eating disorders. Her discussion emphasizes the role social media plays in peoples’ relationship with food. She preaches the importance for people to realize that social media is a risk factor for disordered eating patterns, not the direct cause of them. The National Eating Disorders Association stated that as many as 65% of people with eating disorders say bullying contributed to their condition. Cyberbullying on social media is a major contributor to troubles with self-image. Nowadays it is easier for people to hide behind a screen and tear down others. We all have insecurities that we hide in fear of others exposing or thinking the same thing. This is because hearing or seeing someone else expose those insecurities is shattering. And that’s exactly what social media has done.
Highlight reel. Perfect relationship, perfect hair, perfect clothes, perfect skin, perfect picture. It may look perfect, but it is not real. That’s what we look at when we scroll and compare. We’ve convinced ourselves into thinking that everyone else is absolutely thriving based on a photo that has been edited. In her article, “The Effects of Social Media on Body Image and Mental Health” ( 19 Feb. 2020), author Amanda Doria claims that teenage girls are trapped in the dangerous cycle of comparing their body types to the perfection of social media influencers and celebrities, leading to body image issues and unhealthy eating habits. Doria supports her claim by using statistics from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, NHS Digital, and the Agency for Health Research and Quality. She then discusses a recent research study that found when young women look at pictures of popular social media influencers, it leads to negative body images, but there were no negative effects when looking at pictures of family members. This leads me to believe that in a world manifested with the idea of perfection, we have lost the ability to see beauty in imperfections. The non-perfect, non-scripted, non-filtered moments are the ones that really matter and the ones that will bring real happiness into people’s lives. However this is not an easy task. As an 18 year old girl myself, I realize insecurities and self-comparison does not go away with a flip of a switch. But by limiting our time on social media, we limit the amount of time we give ourselves to obsesses over our flaws.
Several sources have found that girls experience the effects of social media use more drastically than boys. In his article, How Does Social Media Affect Girls? They Feel Effects More Strongly Than Boys New Research Says” (14 Aug. 2019), Jay Polish asserts that mental health issues from frequent social media use actually stem from several other factors, such as lack of sleep and physical activity, and the effects are more prominent in girls than boys. He addresses how social media platforms alone do not necessarily cause harm to mental health, but heavy use of applications such as instagram and facebook lead to other problems like lack of sleep, inactivity, and depression. All of these factors can be damaging to mental and emotional health in adolescents. Polish also dives into gender socialization and expectations, and why depression is now being described as a “feminine” struggle. In a 2016 study published in the journal BMC Public Health, it stated that worldwide women reported poorer physical/mental health than men and men self-reported less depressive symptoms. Is this because males are in fact feeling the damaging effects of social media as drastically as females but are not admitting their struggles out of fear of being perceived as weak? Or are the damaging effects of social media actually more prominent in females?
In their article, “Managing the Effects of Social Media on Teen Girls” (11 Mar. 2020), the counselling staff at Northwestern discusses how social media affects the well-being of girls differently than boys due to the significant external pressure they receive. The Northwestern counselling staff bases their argument upon a data chart from 2018 by Pew Research, which compares what content and how much of it girls post versus what boys post on their social media, following up with an analysis of the results. The chart analyzes the difference in content posted by boys and girls. For example, boys are more likely to post funny and entertaining things while girls post more about their feelings and judgements. Moreover, girls and boys ranging from 15-17 were compared regarding their social media activity. The girls proved to post the most in all categories including, political beliefs, religious beliefs, personal problems, dating life, emotions, family, and accomplishments. Teenage girls know that social media has negative effects on their mental and emotional health but despite the statistics they continue to use applications like instagram and facebook due to their fear of missing out and need for validation. In his article, “Roles of Cyberbullying, Sleep, and Physical Activity in Mediating the Effects of Social Media Use on Mental Health and Wellbeing among Young people in England: a Secondary Analysis of Longitudinal Data” (13 Aug. 2019), Viner analyzes the relationship between the frequency of social media use and mental health, as well as possible solutions to the problem. His findings come from a nationally representative, longitudinal study of 12,866 young people from age 13 years to 16 years in England. Within his article, he shares that harm to mental health has numerous factors in girls, such as cyberbullying, lack of physical activity, and sleep. He shares that harm to mental health has numerous factors in girls, such as cyberbullying, lack of physical activity, and sleep. Social media can be seen as a huge contributor to these issues since adolescence is an extremely vulnerable time. According to the Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, greater social media use corresponds to online harassment, poor sleep, low-self esteem, and poor body image. They also found that the “magnitude of association between social media use and depressive symptoms was larger for girls than boys”( Northwestern Counseling Staff).
Although science has supported that girls are more vulnerable to mental health issues triggered by social media, it does not mean that boys are not affected. Everyone experiences insecurities and internal struggles. But hopefully by knowing women are already at a high risk genetically for experiencing depressive symptoms, we can start to change social media into a positive platform. I have hair, and I am pretty. I am not a double zero, but I look great in these jeans. I am me and I am happy. These are the thoughts that should be filling up our beautiful, intelligent minds. Let’s not live our lives broken. Let’s feel empowered when we see our reflection; strong in our skin, mind, and heart. Beauty should not be determined by society because beautiful has no shape, size, or color. Beautiful is being happy in your own skin and in your reflection.
See the links below to learn more about the effects social media has on body dissatisfaction, self-esteem and the negative effects social media has on young girls.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6861923/
https://counseling.northwestern.edu/blog/effects-social-media-teen-girls/
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