Social Media Impacts
Social media can be an amazing place for self expression, inclusion, and diversity and it can be positively inspiring to many. Although, it also holds one of the keys as to why so many people, especially teenagers, experience body dissatisfaction. This is primarily due to the unrealistic beauty standards that social media and its influencers hold to others.
Filters and Editing
These create an illusion of beauty that can be so exaggerated and different from reality. Especially recently with the heavy use of AI and its increasing popularity, for who struggle with negative feelings and low self-esteem, it is even more difficult as they are already emotionally low and will take these images or videos literally, causing them to feel inadequate and unattractive. “People are becoming progressively more image-obsessed, and I think that the progression of social media algorithms drives some of that.” (Bryne, 2023). Dr. Bryne brings out a point that people have become “image-obsessed” causing then to be so preoccupied with their appearance.
So, we can understand from this that this dissatisfaction with ourselves is not only from comparing ourselves with what we see on social media but can also come from the constant exposure to your own face. This can happen even just by looking at pictures of yourself constantly, it starts to create distortion. We become our own critics and not in all cases but for some this is where body dysmorphic disorder could start.
Author's Personal Experience
Speaking from experience, this author has been on the borderline of Body Dysmorphic Disorder. There was a period in my life where I was so obsessed with how I looked and my self-esteem felt so low. This was so emotionally draining, and it began to disrupt my daily life. I developed intense anxiety, especially when I was invited out because I didn’t want people to look at me because I thought they were judging me. I had a hard time finding clothes that I liked because I wasn’t happy with how they looked on me, and I began to feel irritable when I was around others because I was so in my head all the time. I constantly compared myself to others and it was exhausting. Dr. Bryne later went on to mention in the previous article, how unhealthy this really is especially for younger people who self-esteem is still developing, and he couldn’t be more right. (Bryne, 2023).
As this happened through my early teenage years, there came a point where I felt that this is something that I can overcome and I really wanted to try to love myself. So, I found hobbies, I stopped looking at social media all the time, I stopped comparing myself to others in public, I took up reading and knitting, I started to draw and bake, I found things that made me happy and that distracted me from how I felt about my body. Its easier said than done but it is possible, I had my family to support me, especially my sister, and I slowly began to come out of my shell, make friends, and grow to truly love myself. I still have bad days where I lack confidence but slowly the good days began to outweigh the bad. To be able to change our perception of ourselves takes a lot of effort but with time and support it is possible.
