There is information that reveals that there are 87% of women and 65% of men who compare their bodies to images that they see on social media (King University, 2019) which can lead to thoughts of body dissatisfaction. A 2016 study found that young adults who spend most of their time on social media would experience poorer sleep quality, lower self-esteem and higher levels of anxiety and depression (Doria, 2020).  Body dissatisfaction is having negative feeling or thoughts about your own body image, not feeling “good enough.” There are plenty of ways that can lead individuals to think this way, one factor that is a possible leading factor is social media. Social media is made up of many platforms that have made it accessible for people to be able to interact with others across the globe. Throughout the years there have been discussions about how it will affect the younger generation as it would be easier for it to be used once they have a way to use it.  I had my first phone in 5^th grade and have been using social media since then, I seen the many different trends rise and fall and seen how the beauty standards affected many who couldn’t look like the preferred standards. I went through those same trends wishing I looked different, had my parents make more income and even be of a different nationality. What really had a big impact on me though, was the effect on how popular people set a certain standard of what is considered beautiful and accepted as attractive. Coming from a short Mexican who had the body of a door, my confidence shrunk as my desire to have the accepted body sky- rocketed.

There is a process in which researchers conducted a study that deals with the possible correlation that social media in any way, shape or form might lead to body dissatisfaction. There have been many studies that test whether or not there is a correlation between social media and body dissatisfaction; what they fail to also include is how it may possibly affect the male gender as well. Social media meaning (in own words) is made up of many different internet platforms that made it accessible for practically anyone in the world to interact with one another and share their day to day lives in the internet. There are many platforms that make up what we know of as social media for example, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and Facebook to name a few. With these types of media, you are able to virtually make friends with practically anyone in the world.

            Body dissatisfaction can come in many different forms and can have many factors that cause them. Many things that influence body dissatisfaction ranges from pictures of models that either bought their body, worked out day and night for the body they have, or even got lucky when it came down to genetics. There are claims that the use of social media has negative effects when it comes to adolescents, there can be many things that influence and make them believe that their appearance is not good enough for the social standards of beauty (Rodgers, Slater, Gordon, McLean, Al, 2019). These characteristics increase the opportunities for unfavorable appearance comparisons, that is, upward comparisons with individuals judged to be more attractive than oneself (O’Brien et al.2009) and have been suggested to be most detrimental compared to down-ward and horizontal appearance comparisons (Schaefer and Thompson2018), as well as exposing adolescents to con-tent that promotes unattainable appearance ideals (Boeppleand Thompson 2016; Ho et al.2016). (Rodgers, Slater, Gordon, McLean, Al, 2019) In other words, the use of social media for very impressionable adolescents can be very concerning based on the content that they are now exposed to. From social media models to many influencers got famous and a huge following based on just their looks. What many of these influencers fail to realize is that from promoting a simple product or use a photo editing app can lead to many of the impressionable adolescents that the body they either bought or highly photoshopped can be achievable and would end up resulting to many unhealthy and dangerous practices that will cause negative long-term effects if untreated.  

            As the topic was introduced with the growth of popularity that social media had, the concerns of the effects on body dissatisfaction grew as well. A researcher has introduced the inspiration to many of the articles included in this paper. The author had mentioned something that is very interesting and reminds us that not only the media has changed over the course of the years but, there is a specific media we talk about affecting adolescents. Perloff was emphasizing the focus of the study on the specific media that is being talked about which is social networking sites like Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat. There is a statistic included to reveal that many adolescents have a major use of these sites and claim that one gender is more active in the sites than the other gender is.

            Male body dissatisfaction is something that is not discussed as much or just glazed through in researching how social media affect body dissatisfaction. Studies have shown that men usually worry about their body weight and compare it to their ideal image when they are exposed to such images, advertisements and media (Flynn, Cotchett, Lin, 2020).  This is important to note since there aren’t many studies being done with the male gender and almost every discussion about body dissatisfaction is mostly about women and their worries about being thin, or fitting into the beauty standard. Research has also proved that males use social media as much as females do (Flynn, Cotchett, Lin, 2020) (Perrin, 2015). So doing research and including both genders and focusing on each equally would make future studies better in terms of including as much information as possible.

            Although most research has been done to prove that social media can cause a negative effect such as body dissatisfaction, points we’re made that even with unrealistic posts and images being put out in the internet, having more of this content may create a more supportive and normalize the type of content being posted without being affected by it (Williams, Ricciardelli, 2014). This may be true to some extent but, it is not always the case since photo editing apps exist and have become normalized over the years and it still affects many young adolescents on social media. Studies proved that as social media is used more in terms of photo-sharing, the rate of photo manipulation was just as high as well. Meaning the more involved you are with sharing your content of your own image, the higher of a chance you are of using any photo manipulations such as photo shop or face tune (McLean, Paxton, Wertheim, Masters, 2015).

            There is no right solution to trying to combat the usage of social media and having thoughts of body dissatisfaction. One major factor is excluded from almost every research is how involved the parents are with their kids and allowing the usage of social media and their lives in general. A research study conducted to see how the involvement of parents and the usage of social media effects the rate of body dissatisfaction proved that the more the positive parent relationships were specifically to their mother, the less social media usage there was and it also included a lesser rate of body dissatisfaction. Not enough research has been done to prove this with a positive father relationship (Vries, Vossen, Kolk, 2019).

            There will be never ending discussions on whether the more usage of social media will affect someone’s body satisfaction and what factors can play into leading to the feeling of body dissatisfaction. Not enough research has been done on the male gender to be able to discuss how social media can affect them at a young age or any other aspects that include the usage of photoshop or any other photo manipulation applications. There also needs to be more research done on what different type of body dissatisfaction can look like to many different people: what more can be done in order to suppress the feeling of any type of dissatisfaction and negative thoughts beyond the discussion of satisfaction? Research on how social media affects everything and everyone is still pretty brand new to most, as social media has gained popularity over the past 20 years. However, more studies will be done and more information will come out to further prove to us how the usage can affect us in many different ways.

Refrences

Amanda Doria, The Effects of Social Media on Body Image and Mental Health (2020)

http://lifesciencesjournal.org/2020/02/the-effects-of-social-media-on-body-image-and-mental-health/

Dian A. de Vries, Helen G. M. Vossen, Paulien van der Kolk–van der Boom, Social Media and Body Dissatisfaction: Investigating the AttenuatingRole of Positive Parent–Adolescent Relationships (2019)

King University, The link between social media and body image, (2019)

https://online.king.edu/news/social-media-and-body-image/

Mark Allen Flynn,Emily Cotchett, Linda Lin The relationship betweenmen’s peer and socialmedia muscularity idealdiscrepancies andbody satisfaction(2020, Vol. 37(5) 1534–1553)

Perrin, A. (2015, October 08).Social media usage: 2005-2015. http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/10/08/social-networking-usage-2005-2015/

Rachel F. Rodgers1,2,3●Amy Slater4●Chloe S. Gordon3●Siân A. McLean3●Hannah K.Jarman3●Susan J. Paxton3  (2019-2020)  A Biopsychosocial Model of Social Media Use and Body Image Concerns, Disordered Eating, and Muscle-Building Behaviors among Adolescent Girls and Boys Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2020) 49:399–409   

Richard M. Perloff (2014) Social Media Effects on Young Women’s Body Image Concerns:Theoretical Perspectives and an Agenda for Research Sex Roles  71:363–377

Robert J. Williams&Lina A Ricciardelli (2014) Social Media and Body Image Concerns: Further Considerationsand Broader Perspectives Sex Roles  71:389–392.

Si^an A. McLean, BSc(Hons)1*Susan J. Paxton, PhD1Eleanor H. Wertheim, PhD1Jennifer Masters, PhD2  (2015) Photoshopping the Selfie: Self Photo Editing and Photo Investment are Associated with Body Dissatisfaction in Adolescent Girls (Int J Eat Disord 2015; 48:1132–1140).