Seeing friends’ carefully curated selfies on Facebook is more likely to induce feelings of guilt or shame among young women, and lead to unnecessary dieting, than images of models or celebrities they see in magazines.
Academics found that young women are more likely to compare their appearance with that of their peers’ images on social media than they were with celebrities on TV, adverts or other forms of traditional media. When they then make an unfavourable comparison with the other woman they are looking at, the impact is more pronounced when the image is on social media.
Women are also more likely to diet and do exercise when negative comparisons take place on sites such as Facebook or Instagram, the research found. The vast majority of study participants were not overweight and did not need to diet.
Researchers said the study, which will appear in March in the journal Body Image, has implications for how schools should teach young people about the influences that might affect their self-esteem.
Jasmine Fardouly, lead researcher at the centre for emotional health at Macquarie University, Sydney, said there are several reasons why social media may be more damaging than traditional media. “Celebrities may seem more distanced and their appearance may seem less attainable than people you work with or see regularly.”
The study, which questioned about 150 young women who completed five daily surveys over a five-day period, found that participants overwhelmingly considered themselves less attractive than the people they saw both online and in traditional media.
The negative impact that thin models and airbrushed adverts have on young women has been a source of concern for decades, but increasing attention is being paid to the role of social media. Around 70% of women aged 18 to 35 regularly edit their images before posting them – as do 50% of men in the same age group, according to research by the Renfrew Center Foundation, a US organisation that specialises in tackling eating disorders. Airbrushing on social media has become commonplace: Samsung users have reported that their phones default to a “beauty” mode that alters their faces and smooths out imperfections.
Last month Be Real, a national campaign, was launched to improve body confidence by providing resources to schools, as well as calling on the diet industry, media and businesses to promote different body shapes and sizes. The campaign was launched in response to a report by the all-party parliamentary group on body image which found that girls as young as five were worrying about their appearance.
Natasha Devon, the former children’s mental health champion, and co-founder of the Self-Esteem Team, said that PSHE (personal, social and health education classes in schools) – which cover topics such as body image – should be made compulsory, if these issues are to be taught properly.
