Do you also catch yourself mindlessly scrolling through Instagram whenever you have got some time to spare? Believe me, you are not alone. But have you ever wondered how all these images of other people’s bodies may affect how you view your own body? No matter whether these pictures are your friend’s holiday picture, influencers’ gym selfie, or a celebrity’s beach photoshoot. You may think by yourself: “I wish I looked like her”.
Nowadays, the usage of social media is gradually growing and has already infiltrated into our daily lives. Instagram creates the illusion of perfection which is perceived by many as the beauty standards. In contrary to these beauty standards, our normal non-perfect lives seem somehow abnormal. As a result, some people may resort to drastic measures, or even eating disorders as their dissatisfaction with their body grows to try to achieve these unattainable goals as “beauty standards” (Dakanalis et al. 2014).
As we are scrolling through Instagram or posting pictures of ourselves, negative thoughts about our own body may arise (Holland & Tiggermann, 2016). A harsh comment by someone may result in dissatisfaction with our own body as many of us tend to interpret our social standing through comments or social comparison (Toma et al. 2008). A nice example is a video I encountered a few years ago by Cassey Ho, a social media fitness entrepreneur. Please watch the video below.
This video reflected how the comments by others on social media may affect how we feel about our own body. It made me start wondering how much of what we see are real on Instagram. Nowadays, there are numerous apps for altering your face and body as well as beauty filters to cover your imperfections (Fallon, 2014). Many of the pictures we see online are altered to enhance their features before it goes online. Even if I do not want to admit it, I will often find myself comparing to these influencers as well. I believe many followers of these Insta-celebrities do as well and what these followers think, actually becomes the new beauty standard.
This is just how trends work; they are going in and out like a fast fashion. Back in the day, flat chest and slim waist were in and now curvy body, thick lips and big booty are in. What is next? What do you think about the current beauty standard that is defined by altered pictures as the result of the current technology? Are you able to catch up with the current trend or will you rather alter yourself just to fit in? Let me know in the comments below!
Sources:
Dakanalis, A., Clerici, M., Caslini, M., Favagrossa, L., Prunas, A., Volpato, C., & Zanetti, M. A. (2014). Internalization of sociocultural standards of beauty and disordered eating behaviours: the role of body surveillance, shame and social anxiety. Journal of Psychopathology, 20, 33-37.
Ho, C. (2015) The “Perfect” Body [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsL7W-GHhJA
Holland, G., & Tiggemann, M. (2016). A systematic review of the impact of the use of social networking sites on body image and disordered eating outcomes. Body image, 17, 100-110.
Fallon, K. (2014). Streams of the self: The Instagram feed as narrative autobiography. In Proceedings of the interactive narratives, new media & social engagement international conference (Vol. 101, pp. 54-60).
Toma, C. L., Hancock, J. T., & Ellison, N. B. (2008). Separating fact from fiction: An examination of deceptive self-presentation in online dating profiles. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(8), 1023-1036.
I totally agree with the described affect of instagram on (unrealistic) beauty standards. It seems that the Kardashians are the embodiment of the curvy body, thick lips and big booty standard. However, these unrealistic standards do not only occur for woman. The amount of male accounts on instagram with sixpacks and big muscles is incredible, showing boys and man that they need to be muscular to adhere to the standard.
However, a small counter movement is growing on Instagram, fighting the illusive beauty standard created by edited instagram photos. The account (https://www.instagram.com/the_truth_is_not_pretty/) shows the concealing difference between instagram photos and reality, both funny and effective to make people realize that Instagram and its beauty standards do not match with reality!
Yes, the Kardashians were definitely the one who started the “new trend” on Instagram. There’s no denying that these sisters are beautiful and beautiful people naturally get more attention. Additionally, they are super rich and even have their own TV show starring their family dramas. I know it is intriguing to follow the lifestyle of the rich and famous people. I have absolutely no problem with that. However, I do find its quite troubling that everything what the Kardashians sisters post on Instagram become trending on the internet. They have no idea how much impact they have on their followers. For example, Kylie Jenner posted a picture of her wearing a waist trainer, calling its her beauty secret. Another one of her posting a selfie with FitTea. She was literally telling young girls to use these squishing your organs out equipment and laxatives are the way to get her body. This is not okay in my opinion. Okay enough about the Kardashians. Moving over to the small counter movement you mentioned, Yes Yes Yes. I know this account as well and I follow many more who are actually fighting against these so called beauty standard and teach women or men how to love their body as it is. I wonder how long it will actually takes for people to realise that Instagram is not the reality we should compare ourselves with. Probably as long as it took for people to realise that most magazines covers were photoshopped. Anyway, thanks for your input! 😉
Thanks for sharing this post, the headline got me immediately attracted. I believe Instagram and other social media platforms, which creates the illusion of perfection, are changing our self-image in a bad manner. The video of Cassey Ho reminded me of the South Park episode ‘The Hobbit’, an episode in which the characters of South Park got involved into photoshop. In the episode, it all started with one girl helping a girl making use of photoshop. The positive reaction of other characters on the photo, resulted in almost all the girls using photoshop and viewing altered photos as the new standard. Although, this is a cartoon series mainly on the purposive of comedy, it did very well in making me realize the effect of social media and photoshop on people. That is why I think that besides serious content, comedy will play an important role in creating awareness. Humoristic videos could attract a wider audience and help more people realize they should not compare themselves to internet picture perfectness.
South Park! one of my all time favorites! Just like the Simpsons, it is a very educative cartoon serie portraying the real world behind its humoristic and sarcasm characteristics. I remember watching these cartoon series while growing up, never realizing that they had such great meaning behind it. As I was growing up, I slowly realized that South Park was actually portraying real world problems. Cartoon Series like South Park and the Simpsons are actually great sources who can help illustrate the real world problems while satirizing it. This makes it more appealing for audiences of all age, especially effective helping students to learn and making them aware of the real world problems.
Great topic! I fully agree with the crooked reality Instagram portrays. I think what would be a good solution is when Instagram will get rid of the displayed likes underneath each photo. This will change the entire way Instagram is used. People might actually post what they like and what inspires them instead of pictures of themselves keeping up a sometimes, fake lifestyle and photoshopped looks. The focus is then really on what is posted and not the amount of likes. These ‘beauty standards’ but also looks and lifestyle of users will not be justified by the thousands of likes it is ‘ought’ to have.
Yes I totally agree with you! However, I think it is too good to be true for Instagram to get rid of the displaying feature of the amount of likes since it is their trademark feature. Instagram wont be Instagram without the likes. Furthermore, the likes are not the most harming in my opinion, I think it’s the comments underneath each photo. These comments can be either supportive or harming depending on the users. And I think that’s the problem here, there will always be people who think they know it better and can just freely judge people on their appearance whether it is up to the “beauty standard” or not. These toxic people will not hesitate to leave some harmful comment since they are safe behind their phone screen without realizing how harmful these comments may be for the owner of the photo.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts regarding this much-debated topic. Instagram is currently doing a trial in Australia regarding this issue. Instagram users will from now on not be able to see how many likes a post has received. Because the number of likes has been removed. The main reason for this trial is to remove pressure on digital platforms. Instagram is planning the expand this trail to New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Ireland, Italy and Brazil. I think this trial is a good solution, I hope it will help Instagram users to focus more on what they really enjoy in life, rather than focussing on the number of likes they receive. I think this will have a positive influence on our community. If the trial works out well, Instagram might make this change permanent across every country. For more information, check out: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/18/instagram-hides-number-of-likes-from-users-in-australian-trial
Hi Romee, thanks for sharing the article! I did not know there was a trial going on where the amount of likes are hidden from the users. I think it is a great initiative and I will be keeping an eye on the progress. Hopefully, the trial will be a great success so this solution can be implemented worldwide. This will definitely help to reduce the amount of pressure on the youth nowadays caused by Instagram!
Interesting topic! I totally agree with the statement that Instagram creates the illusion of perfection, which is perceived by many as the beauty standards.
Besides affecting peoples’ self image, scrolling through Instagram could also influence the consumer behaviour. People are confronted with their Instagram-idols on a daily basis, and therefore with all the products they use in their “perfect life”. This unconscious influencing changes the consumer behaviour of the followers. Thus, Instagram is a low-threshold platform for companies to apply their unconscious marketing strategies. An interesting article about the conscious and unconscious in marketing is: https://www.brandingmag.com/2014/01/22/conscious-and-unconscious-in-marketing/.
Thank you for sharing this article. I think it is really important to discuss the influence of social platforms. It controls our lifes in positive and negative ways and often the negative ways are overlooked or hushed up.
In my surroundings I have been in contact with anorexic girls very often. I think it is horrible how such platforms can have influence on anorexic girls their mind. I know that Instagram tried to fight against accounts that glorify Anorexia, but that seemed to be counterproductive according to research from the American Georgia Institute of Technology. The developers of Instagram banned Anorexia related searchwords, but the glorifying users made up other words to contact insecure girls…
Yes, I totally agree with you how the negative influence of Instagram is overlooked. People have no idea how big of an impact it is and I think a part of this problem is the fact that not many people are coming forward with their issues. Some people may look healthy on the outside but might be actually struggling on the inside with their appearance but are afraid to be judged if they come forward. Therefore, they choose to remain silent. Furthermore, even though there are a lot of papers regarding this phenomenon, most of them are indirect link and cannot be linked directly. Do you perhaps have the research paper from the American Georgie Institute of the Technology? I would like to read that paper!
Thank you for this interesting blog. People spend an abundant time on internet surfing, and most time is on social media. In China, there is a group of people called ‘network red’, who is famous for their similar big eyes and pointed chins. In fact, to pursue ‘beauty’, a lot of young women going abroad to Korean to have their plastic surgery. Now there is a trend of pursuing nature beauty and refusing similar cosmetic surgery. Not influenced by social customs is difficult in this era of information explosion, but we should try not to lose self mind.
Hi Ann, thanks for this interesting blog! Yes I totally agree with you that Instagram and other social medias like Snapchat, and even camera apps are making a distortion of how people perceive beauty and identify themselves! If we ever want to take a picture or shoot a video with a featured camera app, there are just so many filters which erase our own looks and directly draw those common beauty features on top of our faces and bodies. Of course you can argue that itself is a featured camera app, what else can we expect from it, but it becomes overwhelming that how common and normal people post all these similar-look, if not identified, photos without questioning “Am I wearing someone else’s skin?” or “Is this really me?”. It got worse when smart phone producers also comply to the abnormal trend. It was like a default function for many Chinese smart phone producers to have beauty cameras as their system build-in cameras, such as Huawei, Oppo, and Vivo. They all sell well on it. However, it is interesting to notice that Apple also started to join this trend yet caused a backfire. Refer to https://www.businessinsider.nl/beautygate-iphone-xs-camera-appears-to-apply-beauty-mode-to-selfies-2018-9?international=true&r=US.
The consequences of Apple and other companies differ probably due to different cultures, but still we need to ask the question “Regardless of countries and cultures, is it ethically right to have a third party like social media or smart phone companies, to frame the beauty standards for customers?”