Sequence 2

Title

Screen, Screen In My Hand, Tell Me I’m The Fairest In All The Land: How Social Media Is Deteriorating The Mental Health Of Adolescent Girls

Year

2022

In this nonfiction research project, Victoria dives into the dangerous psychological effects of social media on teenage girls.

Trigger Warning: Eating Disorders, Body Dysmorphia, Mental Health, and other body-related stressors.

Screen, Screen In My Hand, Tell Me I’m The Fairest In All The Land: How Social Media Is Deteriorating The Mental Health Of
Adolescent Girls

As a bored young kid waiting in the Walmart checkout lanes in the early 2000s I did not have the current-day luxury of having an iPad to play with as my parents began filling the conveyor belt with groceries. Instead, all that was available in my line of sight were the racks of magazines. The racks are filled with a variety of magazines covering the news, celebrity drama, home, and cooking, but what actively tries to catch your attention with scathing headlines are about celebrities’ bodies whether it was their tremendous weight loss or weight gain. The ones burned into my memory were the paparazzi photos of female celebrities at the beach with their bathing suits, each body having a specific flaw highlighted or a feature glorified. Women with lean bodies were labeled as “perfect” or “the best” while bodies that contained fat ripples, cellulite, or were too “thin” were called “the worst” or unflattering. And in my malleable little kid brain, I believed that being lean and free of imperfections was the only acceptable way to be perceived as beautiful. Such unrealistic notions of beauty were only further enhanced by the rise of social media occurring by the time I was in middle school. Nearly everyone in my social circle has a social media platform, Instagram and Snapchat were the most popular, though I did not have these apps until I was in high school I did a close second, Pinterest. On Pinterest, you can find anything and everything, but as a young teenage girl, my personal interests in makeup and fashion were filled with the opposite of me. Outfits were modeled by thin women, rarely anyone mid-size or plus-size, makeup looks were clear of acne and scars and layered with photoshop and filters. My changing body did not resemble what social media deemed beautiful and so my brain concluded that I in turn was not beautiful. Mirrors were my worst enemy, my face and body betrayed me, and I felt like I was back in the checkout lane seeing myself in those magazines. But the magazines were bearable compared to pins and posts, social media was never-ending, and anyone anywhere could post creating a sea of unrealistic beauty pictures.

Now with the rise of TikTok, it does not matter how curated your for-you page is and if your interests do not include beauty, the app will still show you videos of women with unrealistic beauty standards. To combat the abundance of one specific ideal body type and face came the “body positivity movement.” The movement promotes the acceptance of all body types as equally beautiful and worthy of love. Many people would assume that with the creation of the “body positivity movement” and the slight rise in non-standard beauty that social media is on or has reached the goal of no longer being toxic to young girls and teenagers. Since now girls have access to a variety of body types, faces, and influencers there should not be a problem anymore that social media does not damage the mental health of female adolescents since younger generations are educated. However, we as a society have not escaped toxic beauty standards, rather it has escalated with the aid of social media. The mental health crisis of teenage girls has only been worsened by the bombardment of constantly changing body images. Social media companies are aware of the problems their platforms promote yet continue to impact the mental health of teenage girls online. There needs to be clear and effective legal regulations on what social media can allow on their platform while putting children’s safety first.

For years now Instagram is known for promoting dieting, eating disorders, and anorexia. In years prior, at the high of its popularity Tumblr was known for sensationalizing body-checking trends. Their most infamous trend was having a “thigh gap,” people posted their legs positioned together at the knees and ankles with the goal to be skinny enough that their thighs would not touch. Now with the exponential popularity of TikTok, body-checking trends have found a new home with a new generation of teenage girls. In their essay, Couloote and Elmaliki, note that Gen Z is “...burying their message in irony and sly humor…These are young people who have come of age amid the body positivity movement, and who are more likely to have been educated…so body-checking on TikTok has morphed into ‘I’m not really talking about how skinny I am, even though I am.’” (2) On older apps body-checking trends were promoting anorexia and eating disorders to perpetuate unrealistic beauty standards and trends which were obvious to users. Today, it’s concerning that users can be served damaging content without realizing the unhealthy message it promotes. Because TikTok does not allow eating disorders or the search of “body-check” on their platform, creators are using “discrete” methods such as tags like #sideprofile, #tinywaist, and even #ed, or using audios like “it’s not fair” being played repeated a majority of the posts glorify anorexia. TikTok is not the only platform whose algorithm is targeting teenage girls with predatory body images and insecurities.

A young woman pulled her shirt towards her back tightly to show her waist size. This is a body-checking trend that consists of wearing an oversized shirt to show how the participant has a small waist.

Pathway, a study done by the 5rights, a foundation that works to protect children and their rights online, found that Instagram’s algorithm is also a culprit in promoting weight loss and extreme diets. Researchers created 3 social media accounts or “avatars” that appeared as fake teenager accounts to see how Instagram’s algorithm could curate their “explore” page from a default page. Out of three avatars, there was only one teenage girl, the avatar, Ciara, was set to the age of 17. Like the other avatars, her account followed the same “phases.” In phase one her account’s “explore” page started generic. In phase two, after “following” 400 accounts that mimicked real children’s profiles, the feed was filled with beauty tips, celebrity content, etc. In phase three, after “liking” content that average children “liked” the “explore” page began featuring fitness content that promoted weight loss. The question is why was Ciara being served weight loss and fitness content when the avatar never “liked” any of it? After now interacting with such content her feed was filled with pictures of people’s weight loss journey and slim and edited bodies.

The picture includes three screenshots from Ciara’s Instagram. From left to right it shows the progression of generic to beauty to weight loss content being promoted to Ciara. These shots are prior to the account following or liking any weight loss content.

To test if there would be a difference in ages, another avatar, Charlotte (15) followed the same phases as Ciara and ended up with the same “explore” page. The study also mentioned that their children's avatars were receiving age-relevant advertising. Ads regarding toys, hygiene products, and school-related apps were being promoted alongside content about weight loss, dieting, and eating disorders. This only highlights that social media companies are aware of the ages registered to these accounts and continue to allow their algorithm to target them with harmful images and videos.

A side-by-side comparison of a woman with and without a beauty filter. On the left is the untouched photo. On the right, the filter makes the woman has darker skin with makeup, her eyes are lifted and the nose is smaller.

Today you have access to thousands of free and precise beauty filters for photoshopped plastic surgery to be on your face. Ryan-Mosley interviews Claire Pescott in the article, Pescott researches preteen behavior on social media at the University of South Wales. In her research, she has observed that “...[The girls] were all saying things like, ‘I put this filter on because I have flawless skin. It takes away my scars and spots.’ And these were children of 10 and 11.” Even before puberty hits, young girls are internalizing the media around them, the ideal face of beauty is not theirs. Beauty filters are the most accessible, effective, and easiest way for young girls to hide their imperfections. In collaboration with the Dove Self-Esteem Project, Professor Phillippa Diedrichs of the University of West England worked on appearance research. In the study, Diedrichs found that 77% of young girls reported that before posting a picture of themselves they tried to cover one or more parts of their bodies. Diedrichs states that “Young women who spent just 10 minutes taking, editing and posting selfies to social media reported feeling more anxious, less confident and less physically attractive afterward compared to those who didn’t engage in these behaviours.” (Ryan-Mosley) By having access to beauty filters and editing tools, teenage girls are struggling with body image and self-esteem issues. Girls are being fed unrealistic and biased ideals of what is deemed beautiful simply by opening their social media apps, so turning to body-deforming applications and tools is only human. I was a teenage girl, of course, you want to look the way the internet deems beautiful because you do not want to feel rejected or embarrassed. But teenage girls are comparing their real-life imperfections with a blurred and narrowed-down image of what they feel they should look like. As an adult, I do not turn to beauty filters or editing apps to feel beautiful but when you are in the mind and body of a teenager who is so self-conscious and concerned about their peers' opinions the pressure to conform is real. It is expected that it takes a long time to become comfortable with one's own body, but why should teenage girls suffer even more with the weight of social media?

To admit to being someone who disliked their body because they were influenced by social media has its own stigma. You feel as though you are weak and shameful to think poorly of yourself, that comparing your body to others shows a level of deep insecurities that no one can know. A study titled “I don’t need people to tell me I’m pretty on social media” was done by researchers at the Department of Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth University in 2017. The study was done on six focus groups made up of early adolescent girls from the ages of 12-14. They found that though the girls felt a degree of body image comparison due to social media, girls in five of the groups denied making comparisons. However, the researchers also acknowledged that the girls were hesitant in their responses because of possible shame and embarrassment for admitting to comparing their bodies and the harm social media has done to them. (Burnette 122) Anyone who has body image problems and has the compulsion to compare their bodies know that it’s not an easy thing to admit to. We are the biggest critics of ourselves and to give someone else the power to judge us for being human beings who compare ourselves will only lead to shame. In a world where the body positivity movement exists it’s frustrating to tell people that you dislike your body because the reply will always be to “love yourself” or “you shouldn’t think like that.” You cannot even express your frustration and sadness without being told not to, so why share if it is deemed socially unacceptable? The online discourse about body image has changed but not entirely for the better.

Just as there are teenage girls who suffer because of social media there are also people who will deny the girls’ pain. Over the recent years, there has been traction in changing how people should love their bodies. The “body positivity” movement started back in 1967 as a form of radical fat activism, it was created with the intent to raise the voices of fat and disabled communities. In 2012 the movement gained new popularity in order to combat beauty ideals perpetuated by social media. The message was to accept and love all body types, and that one’s body is special. However, in the past few years, the movement has been controversial as many of the original messages have been lost. People with bodies that society has deemed “beautiful” like smaller frames and white skin have co-opted the movement even though it started to reject those standards and embraced the “undesired.” And because of the capitalistic world we live in, the movement has been used to make profits with clothing and cosmetic companies trying to sell to consumers that “love their bodies.” The message that “we should love our bodies” has been diluted into “you should love yourself or you will be hated for not conforming.” People will use the argument that because the body positivity movement exists and how we have access to more ethnically and physically diverse people online there should be no reason to feel “excluded.” That our internal struggles of body image issues should not exist and our mental health as teenage girls is not valid or important enough to talk about. Why should the conversation of dangerous and unhealthy beauty standards continue to be talked about if it is now “in the past” because of movements and accepting language used today? A bandaid solution will not hold forever because it does not address the root cause of the issue.

Beauty standards have been a part of societies for thousands of years, and we as a society have to acknowledge the thoughts and beliefs ingrained in us. The preconceived notions and biases we have towards beauty. And with the rise of social media, it is imperative that we learn to deconstruct what “beauty” is accessible to be. Society’s standards of beauty are no longer only dictated by regions around the world, now with social media, it's global. The depiction of what is deemed acceptable in one country can be incredibly unrealistic in another. These giant social media platforms do not regulate their content on their own so it’s important that we begin to push for legislation, putting the power in our hands as opposed to a media conglomerate. In 2021, the Norwegian Ministry of Children and Equality passed a law that forces influencers “...to declare if their figure or features have been edited and if they have used a filter through a government-approved label.” (Jimenez) All photographs need to have a tag that demonstrates if their bodies have been edited, for example, waist size, skin color, or height. Failure to comply with the regulations will result in penalties like fines. This system is a good start in beginning to change our warped perception of what beauty is and how people deny changing themselves. The law does not take away people’s ability to edit their photos but they do not allow influencers to make money and gain followers by building a fake persona and selling weight-loss gimmicks. The downside to this legislation is that it puts the responsibility on users rather than the companies themselves. We as users should be responsible for what we post and what life we are trying to portray, but companies should be held accountable for what they allow and show to younger audiences. The work has begun but social media regulation is still a new field that needs monitoring and carefully calculated changes. Many might say having the government infer what people can or can not be posted online is a violation of our freedom of speech. However, we forget that we influence the government, we elect who serves us, and voices and concerns need to be heard. In the U.S. especially, we are home to numerous social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook, what is regulated here will also greatly affect these companies’ actions in other countries.

In her New York Times Opinion article, For Teen Girls, Instagram Is a Cesspool, Lindsay Crouse wrote: “For girls in America, taking in content that seems intended to make you hate your body is an adolescent rite of passage.” This quote encapsulates all of the anger, pain, and years of healing that I endured as a teenage girl and so many others. The mental health of adolescent girls is severely affected by the rise of social media. Our society’s tradition of imposing unrealistic beauty standards has only been worsened by our constant and instant access to social media. Social media platforms are directly targeting teenage girls with unhealthy and insecurity-inducing content, and yet they do nothing to change it. It is crucial for us as a society to fight for regulations on social media and to protect our younger population. There will always be people who oppose change and see no reason for it. In spite of that, the mental health of children is important no matter the problem or how insignificant some might see it. The internet has very little compassion for teenage girls, why should we not fight to create a safer environment for them?

Works Cited

5Rights Foundation. “Pathways: How digital design puts children at risk.” 1 July 2021, https://5rightsfoundation.com/uploads/Pathways-how-digital-design-puts-children-at-

risk.pdf. Accessed 31 October 2022.

Burnette, C. Blair, et al. “‘I Don’t Need People to Tell Me I’m Pretty on Social Media:’ A Qualitative Study of Social Media and Body Image in Early Adolescent Girls.” Body Image, vol. 23, 2017, pp. 114–25, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2017.09.001. Accessed 9 November 2022.

Couloote, Breona, and Ibtasam Elmaliki. “Harmful “Body-Checking” Trends Have Come to TikTok.” CUNY Academic Works, 13 December 2021, https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1562&context=gj_etds. Accessed 31 October 2022.

Crouse, Lindsay. “For Teen Girls, Instagram Is a Cesspool.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 8 Oct. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/08/opinion/instagram-teen-girls-mental-health.html.

“Dove Self Esteem Project.” Dove UK, 11 Jan. 2016, https://www.dove.com/ca/en/dove-self-esteem-project.html.

Haines, Anna. “From 'Instagram Face' to 'Snapchat Dysmorphia': How Beauty Filters Are Changing the Way We See Ourselves.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 9 Nov. 2022, https://www.forbes.com/sites/annahaines/2021/04/27/from-instagram-face-to-snapchat-dysmorphia-how-beauty-filters-are-changing-the-way-we-see-ourselves/?sh=708ae5bd4eff#open-web-0.

Jimenez, Mar Bermudez I. “Norway Bans Influencers from Retouching Their Photos.” Ara in English, Ara in English, 2 July 2021, https://en.ara.cat/misc/norway-bans-influencers-from-retouching-their-photos_1_4040865.html.

Ryan-Mosley, Tate. “Beauty Filters Are Changing the Way Young Girls See Themselves.” MIT Technology Review, MIT

Technology Review, 20 Oct. 2021, https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/04/02/1021635/beauty-filters-young-girls-augmented-reality-social-media/.

“The History of the Body Positivity Movement.” BBC Bitesize, BBC, 21 Mar. 2022, https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z2w7dp3.

Viren Swami Professor of Social Psychology. “Why the Body Positivity Movement Risks Turning Toxic.” The Conversation, 14 Sept. 2022, https://theconversation.com/why-the-body-positivity-movement-risks-turning-toxic-189913.