A couple of years ago, the Wall Street Journal published a shocking report on Instagram which uncovered internal documents proving that Facebook, which owns Instagram, has known for years that the platform is harmful to the mental health of many teenagers — particularly girls — but chose to keep the controversial information to themselves.
However, this revelation didn't come as a surprise to many, as highlighted in a report by the Wall Street Journal. The report cited an internal Instagram presentation from March 2020, which disclosed that when 32% of teenage girls “felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse.” Extensive academic research further corroborated these findings. In fact, a study revealed that a significant 90% of young women admitted to using filters or editing their photos before sharing them on social media platforms.
While realizing how doom-scrolling through Insta can create body image problems for young girls around the world can be a newfound realization, it certainly is not for Dr. Charlotte Markey, a Professor of Psychology at Rutgers University and a world-leading expert in body image research.
"Perfect photos make us feel imperfect because, of course, we are. All humans are imperfect," she explained to Bored Panda in an email. "However, instead of realizing this, our knee-jerk reaction is to want to fix our imperfections and there are so many products available (especially marketed at women) to help us to do so."
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And she's absolutely right about it. A study conducted by Case24 unveiled that a significant 71% of individuals employ FaceTune, a user-friendly editing application, to alter their bodies and modify their features before sharing pictures on Instagram. What's disheartening is that many of us, avid Instagram users, are fully aware of the artificial nature of these images. "Research suggests that even if we know the images aren’t real, we still compare. The visual imagery can be so compelling that even if the more logical part of our brain is saying, 'stop, this is fake, don’t compare yourself', we can still be affected," Markey said.
The utilization of these apps to modify our appearance is closely linked to the rise of eating disorders, particularly among teenagers. Epidemiological research indicates a notable increase in eating disorders over the past 50 years, largely attributed to the widespread use of excessive use of Photoshop. Something that Dr. Markey also discovered in her research.
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"Diet plans, products, and pills are marketed and represent a multi-billion dollar industry. When we see others looking 'perfect' in terms of their body size and shape, and then we see some sort of supplement, diet plan, product, or pill that claims it will help us to look like that… of course, we want to try it!" she explained. "That’s a very natural response to tempting messaging. Of course, most (if not all!) of this is completely false advertising."
Excessive reliance on photo editing apps like Adobe Lightroom and FaceTune, with the intention of enhancing self-confidence, can have detrimental effects on mental well-being. In some cases, this reliance can even contribute to the development of body dysmorphia, a mental health disorder characterized by obsessive preoccupation and distress regarding one's body image.
According to Dr. Markey, addressing this issue should start during a person's formative years. She emphasized the significance of being mindful about how we discuss others and ourselves, even from a young age. "We can avoid focusing on people’s appearances. We can be careful to mention that images our kids see in the media are unrealistic," she suggested. "We can help them to grow up NOT internalizing these beauty ideals because they never really accepted them."
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