Teens understand negative side of their social media use — but stay connected for fear of 'social suicide'
The new research, based on focus groups of transition year students, found that the use of social media exerted 'a strong and mostly negative influence on their body image'. Picture: iStock
Teenagers have outlined how social media platforms exert "a strong and mostly negative influence on their body image".
Despite this, many feel they have to stick with their online profiles "to feel socially connected".
New research based on focus groups of teenagers from transition year classes in two Irish schools said some platforms were worse than others in making them feel self-conscious about their own body image, but not staying online would be akin to "social suicide".
The findings are contained in a study carried out by Ciara Mahon for a PhD in psychology at Trinity College Dublin.
According to the study, adolescents are "prolific, habitual users of social media", with appearance-focused platforms such as Snapchat, Instagram, and VSCO the preferred platforms for many.
"Much of the content that adolescents followed on social media was appearance-focused and included fashion, beauty, sports, and fitness pages. Adolescents reported that these platforms exerted a strong and mostly negative influence on their body image," the study notes.
The students who participated said the social media platforms highlighted discrepancies between their own bodies and the "body ideals" elsewhere, such as having a "six-pack" and being "muscly" for boys, and “thin ideal”, “fit/athletic” and “slim and curvy” for girls.
In addition, "body dissatisfaction was also driven by peer judgment and feedback (likes/comments) on self-presentations in addition to comparisons of feedback received relative to peers".
It said girls were "very much aware of the artificial nature of body ideals and were well versed on the poses, postures, camera angles, reflective surfaces, and lighting factors that were used to frame pictures in a desirable light", but that this knowledge did not eliminate the negative aspects of social media use.
In contrast, "boys did not demonstrate a great awareness of photo-manipulation practices or the unrealistic, edited nature of images on social media".
"Platforms such as VSCO were favoured by some girls because they were not as serious as Instagram and did not contain feedback indices “likes”, “comments”, or hierarchical structures such as “followers” which were problematic features of Instagram."
It also found that "despite asserting that social media provided very little benefits, individuals felt compelled to engage with it in order to remain socially connected and avoid exclusion. Failure to engage with social media was considered to equate to 'social suicide'."
The research also involved a related study involving more than 100 teenagers from four mixed-gender Irish secondary schools to check the effectiveness of a Digital Smart programme in improving main outcomes for self-compassion, self-criticism, body dissatisfaction, and other aspects.
It had some limited success in altering how some students viewed their social media use, but concluded that the intervention was not hugely effective in improving outcomes for body image, and said there is "room for improvement in terms of increasing the ease with which individuals can access genuine, helpful, body-related content".
