This is a photo I recently came across on Facebook and I have noticed that it has been posted and discussed on various other websites. 

This photo is part of a video for a Swedish eating disorder campaign. This photo is meant to show how an anorexic girl sees herself.

http://sites.psu.edu/memyselfandi/files/2012/11/Anorexia-Nervosa-Eating-Disorder.jpg

Body Confidence Link

As I discussed in my last post there are some positive ways the internet can help those with body image issues

This is a clip I found on You tube promoting body confidence from Gok Wan’s show "Gok's Teens The Naked Truth"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NH1thH2pXQ

How can the internet help those with body image?

So as you can see in this post I will be looking at how the internet can actually help those with body image issues. When I was looking on the internet at body image I came across many sites that were there to help those with body issues. I noticed many articles that were relating Body Image and TV personality Gok Wan. I was hardly surprised as he has almost become a figure for helping those with body image issues. I found out he even has a website advertising self esteem and body confidence workshops. Gok Wan isn't the only one promoting body confidence I found Facebook pages, blogs and government sites all promoting campaigns for body confidence. There are also many sites and forums out there supporting those with eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia as well as sites created to support overweight individuals trying to lose weight. There are endless amounts of advice and support available on the internet. 

http://l.yimg.com/ea/img/-/111010/gok1_1794c97-1794c9j.jpg

"Second Life" article

In my last post I was discussing how the virtual world can effect our body image.                                                        

This is an interesting article I found on how “Second Life” effects real life

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1739601,00.html

The Virtual World – Second Life

A few years ago someone told me about a website called “Second life”. “Second Life” is a virtual world started by the US firm Linden Lab in 2003, where users can design an avatar and live a "Second life" online. The site became extremely popular when it was launched as it went from having 450,000 members to 4 million members by 2007. The site however has had a lot of criticism for many different reasons. One of the biggest criticisms is probably the effect the game can have on users.  Many users can easily become mentally and physically addicted to the game. A similar criticism to this, is the effect the game can have on body image. When people create avatar’s they often try to make them look as attractive as possible. It doesn't matter if in reality you’re over weight, in “Second life” you can make yourself as skinny as you want. When you start playing in this virtual world you can leave all your body insecurities behind and become the person you've always wanted to be. However as soon as you've left that computer you have to step back into reality and back to those body insecurities. I am not surprised that so many people become addicted to this website, I can see why. It can be an escape where you don’t have to deal with the problems many of us are faced with in reality. I can see many problems however with this, as people have created their ideal perfect self in the virtual world this could be forcing them become too obsessed at becoming and looking perfect in real life, leading them to even lower self esteem then before. Some people such as RTI researchers suggest however that the site could improve people’s body image. These researchers found that having a thin and physically fit avatar could encourage individuals to be healthier and more physically fit in their real lives.  Some health professionals are now even sending their clients to the virtual world for treatment. However its negative effects still appear to outweigh its positive effects.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8367957.stm

http://www.drrobynsilverman.com/body-image/avatar-diet-being-thin-in-second-life-can-make-you-thin-in-your-first/

http://onlinegameskingdom.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/SecondLife4.jpg

Targeting Cyber bullying - Adverts

This is two examples of cyber bullying adverts that have been created to target cyber bullying

http://youtu.be/kKoUegW5cPE

http://youtu.be/qXkQ2pN7Mx0

Cyberbullying and Body Image

Cyberbulling is something that has become a recent issue within our society particularly among young people. Many bullies are now targeting people through social networking sites. In 2006 the MSN cyberbullying report discovered that 11% of UK teenagers had experienced cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is different from normal bullying as it can happen 24 hours a day seven days a week and the person doing the bullying has the ability to make themselves anonymous if they want to. I don’t know if anyone remembers the social networking site that was popular a few years ago “Formspring” It was a site where people could invite online friends to post comments or ask questions anonymously. Many of the questions and comments were malicious and insulting. I myself never had "Formspring" but many of my friends did and some of the things people would post could be extremely threatening.

Cyberbullying can do serious damage to a person’s self esteem and can lead to issues even when that person is older.  Sadly there have been many cases where cyberbullying has driven victims to self harm and to even commit suicide. In October 2012 Erin Gallagher, a 13 year old from Ireland, committed suicide after she was cyber bullied on social networking sites about her looks and her weight. Many people called for one of the websites she was using, "Ask.fm" to be banned. Another case was in December 2012, 15 year old Jessica Laney from Florida, committed suicide after she was cyber bullied over her looks and her love life. Again she was also using the website "Ask.fm" and after her death her friends called for the website to be banned. Until I came across these two cases I had never actually heard of "Ask.fm" so I decided to Google this website. I discovered that it was found in 2010 as a rival for "Formspring" and I also found many websites that were calling for "Ask.fm" to be banned however this has not yet happened.

http://www.digizen.org/downloads/cyberbullying.pdf

http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/11_16/control/cyberbullying/

http://www.endcyberbullying.org/suicide-of-irish-teen-erin-gallagher-linked-to-cyber-bullying/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2246896/Jessica-Laney-16-committed-suicide-internet-trolls-taunted-told-kill-herself.html

http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01611/JEN-620_1611931a.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/PV523.jpg

Pro-Anorexia Links

So in my last post I discussed pro anorexia websites.

Here are some links I have found if anyone is interested in finding out more about them:

“The Truth about Online Anorexia” with Fearne Cotton -  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnR-PxboxdI

“Pro-Ana Websites” -  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AEO1rWJgGc

“Pro –Ana Websites Turn Girls On To Anorexia” - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6ee_vMatRY

Pro-Ana websites

I first heard of Pro Anorexia – sometimes referred to as Pro- Ana - websites on a documentary on TV a few years ago. Before then I was completely unaware they existed. When I recently searched them online I was very surprised at the amount of pro-ana websites there actually are out there. These sites are criticised as being very harmful as they encourage eating disorders and basically promote the idea that the thinner you are the better.  When I went onto some of these websites I was shocked at what I found. One website that I went onto – which claimed to be the leading Pro-Ana website – contained forums in which members appeared to be encouraging and trying to motivate each other to become as thin as possible. Most of the members on the website were teenage girls. It was disturbing to read what some of the girls were saying. It was clear to see many were suffering from extreme body image issues. One girl posted about how she felt really disappointed in herself that she had 50 calories in one day. A particularly disturbing post I came across was a girl who wrote about how she was at a stage where she was unable to eat without binging and she didn’t see how she could recover and then stated “I know where my dads gun is and where the bullets are”. There were many other posts I read that appeared to be similar topics the members were talking about and there were many which appeared to be suffering from extremely low self esteem and mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. As I looked through other websites the word “Thispiration” often appeared to be coming up. It is defined as  “Images and ideas posted on social media sites that are supposed to inspire women to lose weight, but all too often fuel eating disordered behaviour and the pursuit of skeletal thinness” (http://girlsinreallife.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/thinspiration-what-is-it-and-what-is-it-doing-to-us/) These websites also often contained photos of  celebrities, extremely skinny models and girls who were part of these communities. These photos are posted as a way of trying to encourage people on these websites to lose as much weight as possible.

I personally think these sites should be shut down as they appear to be extremely dangerous. They are brainwashing people (particularly young girls) into thinking they need to be very thin and encouraging them to put their health at risk to become dangerously skinny. I am clearly not the only one person who holds this view as I found many websites and news articles that were highlighting the dangers and the concern over these websites.

http://www.myproana.com/

http://pro-thinspo.com.p12.hostingprod.com/skinnythinspiration.htmla

http://25.media.tumblr.com/b753b1b21ea42353862b1e5712e2ed5f/tumblr_mj5l5oHpug1rl79rdo1_250.jpg

http://cdn.blisstree.com/files/2012/02/pro-ana.jpg

http://popsmarts.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/bulimia-anorexia.jpg

Is Facebook promoting poor body image? 

Facebook is the most popular social networking site and has around 1.06 billion monthly active users (http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/resource-how-many-people-use-the-top-social-media/). Many of us have become addicted to the social networking site and will spend hours a day on it.  I would probably say I was one of these people. As soon as I get up in the morning one of the first thing’s I do is check Facebook and I know I’m definitely not the only person who does this. The site however has been criticised by some for promoting poor body image. As soon as you type body image and Facebook into Google you are flooded with sites explaining its harm on body image. There have been studies that have found links that the amount of teenage girls who are more active on Facebook are more at risk of developing a negative body image and eating disorders. A survey that was taken of 600 Facebook users found that more than half of survey-takers admitting that they feel more conscious of their weight because of the social networking site, and only a quarter said that they are happy with their body.

These days we can’t seem to go any social event without someone taking photos and posting them up on Facebook. I myself, hate getting photos and the fact that I know the photos are probably going to end up on Facebook just adds to my insecurity. I am constantly untagging myself from hideous or embarrassing photos on my Facebook but why is this? Facebook is basically an online profile of someone and just like we are judged in outside world when we’re not staring at our computer screens, we are also judged on Facebook. We want to try and make our profile look as attractive as possible to our friends and other users. Every time we like a page on Facebook it is telling other users something about our personality, every time we write a status we are showing the world what we’re thinking or feeling and every time we post or are tagged in photos this shows other users what we've been up to, who we've been with and how drunk we got on Saturday night. Something that many people have become obsessed with is photo “likes” sometimes it almost seems as if it’s some kind of competition of who can get the most profile photo likes. The amount of likes or comments their photo gets appears to play a huge part in either boosting or lowering their self esteem. This is a danger particularly to those already with low self esteem. Some teens think the less clothes they wear the more likes their photos get and this is often true. Another similar issue is the amount of time people - particular young people and teens - spend comparing themselves to others on Facebook. Many of us automatically do it without even realising. Again this can be a danger as it can be lowering our self esteem and making us wish we could look more like someone else.

http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/resource-how-many-people-use-the-top-social-media

http://www.care2.com/causes/facebook-use-leads-to-negative-body-image-and-eating-disorders.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Family/2012/0330/Facebook-may-amplify-eating-disorders-and-poor-body-image

 http://www.leadcreative.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/facebook-like-button.jpg

http://s3-ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/site-assets2/site-assets/article-facebook-obsession-3.jpg

http://www.clicktube.com/shop/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/f92997629fbd20f015125d0401183a62/a/a/aamsh9114_full.gif 

Body Image

Body image is “the perception that a person has of their physical self, but more importantly the thoughts and feelings the person experiences as a result of that perception. These feelings can be positive, negative or a combination of both and are influenced by individual and environmental factors” (http://www.nedc.com.au/body-image)

 Body image is something we have become totally obsessed with whether we’re complaining about being too fat, too skinny, too short, too tall or just wishing we could change our nose, eyes or our hair.  I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who is 100% happy with their body or how they look. We are constantly looking for ways to criticise or change something about ourselves. Many of us will go out and spend lots of money on new clothes, make up, hair products, diet pills, sunbeds, spa treatments or cosmetic surgery. All in an attempt to make ourselves feel better about our body image. It’s not only women who will spend money on these things, men are also starting to spend more money now on products and even cosmetic surgery to try and improve themselves and feel better about their body.

 There are many factors out there that cause people to have a negative or a positive body image. Digital Media is one of them, it can be criticised as having a negative effect on a person’s body image for various reasons, Pro-Anorexia websites are one example of this. However it could also be argued that digital media can be a positive influence towards a person’s body image. I will be discussing the negative and positive effects of digital media on body image in depth and more detail in future posts so watch this space...

(http://s3.amazonaws.com/voy/attachments/1506/inline/an.jpg)

What is Digital media? 

So as part of my coursework for Uni I've been told I need to keep a blog on something that digital media effects . As you can see I have chosen to do my blog on how digital media effects body image.

So what exactly is digital media, Digital media according to Microsoft Windows website is “Any media that is electronic. All digital media is stored in binary numbers and today, we access this media using our desktop computers, laptops, handheld devices such as PDAs, IPhones and even MP3 Players”

Digital media plays a massive role in our lives today. In 2012 there was estimated to be around 2,405,518,376 internet users in the world compared to 2000 where there were only 360,985,492 this is a growth of 566.4%. The internet is become easier than ever before to access. Many of us couldn’t go a day without looking something up on Google, tweeting, YouTubing or posting something on Facebook. We have become obsessed with the internet. 

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/what-is-digital-media-2.aspx

http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm

http://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/dynamic/00002/ARV_30_INTERNET_2187f.jpg