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.care2.com/causes/facebook-use-leads-to-negative-body-image-and-eating-disorders.html
No comments:
Post a Comment