Still, some big holes remain in the research on social media and body image. In previous work published in 2017, researchers found that spending a lot of time perfecting selfies could be a sign that someone is struggling with body dissatisfaction. “But that probably doesn’t last forever, and then you take another selfie.” “There’s this rollercoaster of feeling anxious and then getting reassurance from other people that you look good,” says Mills. Some of the participants wanted to know if anyone had liked their photo before deciding how they felt about having posted it, although looking at interactions wasn’t part of the study. “Even though they can make the end result look ‘better’, they still are focused on aspects of what they don't like about the way they look,” she says. Mills and her colleagues found that all the selfie takers felt less attractive and less confident after posting than when they’d walked into the experiment – even those who’d been allowed to edit their photos to their heart’s content. One group could only take a single picture and upload it without editing, but the other had a chance to take as many as they wanted and retouch their selfie using an app. When it comes to posting our own pictures on social media, selfies tend to be the focus.įor a study published last year, Jennifer Mills, an associate professor at York University, Toronto, asked female undergraduates to take a selfie on an iPad and upload it to either Facebook or Instagram. “It is about loving the body, but it is still very much about a focus on appearance,” says Fardouly. But those people could be taking a broader view of where their beauty comes from, including internal as well as physical attributes, says Slater.Įither way, this fixation with looks is a criticism of the body-positive movement that does seem to hold true. That means when someone wrote “I am beautiful” it got lumped in with negative things people said about their bodies. “You’re perfect just the way you are”) were nicer to themselves – and felt better about their bodies.įor those who viewed both the #fitspo and the self-compassion quotes, the benefits of the latter appeared to outweigh the negatives of the former. Those who viewed only #fitspo scored lower on self-compassion, but those who viewed the compassionate quotes (e.g. Research suggests that “fitspiration” images in particular – which typically feature beautiful people doing exercise, or at least pretending to – might make you harsher on yourself.Īmy Slater, an associate professor at the University of West England, Bristol, published a study in 2017 in which 160 female undergraduates viewed either #fitspo, self compassion quotes, or a mix of both, all sourced from real accounts on Instagram. When it comes to the wider circle of influencers and accounts you follow, not all types of content are equal. If you know someone well, you’ll know they’re only showing the best bits – but if they’re an acquaintance, you won’t have any other information to go on. A systematic review of 20 papers published in 2016 found that photo-based activities, like scrolling through Instagram or posting pictures of yourself, were a particular problem when it came to negative thoughts about your body.įardouly puts this down to the fact that people present a one-sided version of their life online. That being said, using social media does appear to be correlated with body image concerns. This means we can’t prove whether, for example, Facebook causes someone to have negative feelings about their appearance, or whether people who are concerned about their appearance are more likely to use Facebook. It’s important to note that research into social media and body image is still in its early stages, and most studies are correlational. How much is ‘too much time’ on social media?.Why it pays to declutter your digital life.Is social media bad for you? The knowns and unknowns.Now that influencers fill up our feeds, it's easy to imagine that social media, too, is all bad when it comes to body image.īut the reality is more nuanced, and there may be ways to curate your Instagram feed to make you feel happier in your own skin – or, at least, stop you feeling worse.

Much has been made over the years about how mainstream media presents unrealistic beauty standards in the form of photoshopped celebrities or stick-thin fashion models. But have you ever wondered how all those images of other people’s bodies – whether your friend’s holiday snap or a celebrity’s gym selfie – could be affecting how you view your own? If you mindlessly scroll through Instagram or Facebook whenever you get a few seconds of downtime, you’re far from alone.

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