Most everyone has some form of a social media, whether its instagram, twitter, facebook, snapchat, ect. As we spend most of our time on these web platforms, we are constantly seeing the only parts of people lives that want to be seen by their followers. However, before we know it we are envying strangers, and the lives they are portraying. This can consume us and we reflect on our own lives, wishing for a different life. Ultimately, social media affects self esteem and promotes the perfect life.
People on social media enhance, and impair body image. Now of days, girls really take this to the next level, ´´We’ve long understood that movies, magazines and television damage teens’ body image by enforcing a “thin ideal.” Less known is the impact of social media on body confidence´´(Simmons, August 19, 2016). As you scroll through your social media you are most likely going to come across a picture of the what this generation says ´´The perfect Body´´, that could be a girl with a swimsuit on the beach, or even someone working out at the gym. While we look at these pictures, we fantasize thoughts like, ¨why can 't my body look like that¨ or ¨why can 't I have their body. But the real question is, why are we comparing ourselves to others. Psychologist did research why we compare ourselves on social media, they found that ¨Robust cross-cultural evidence linking social media use to body image concerns, dieting, body surveillance, a drive for thinness and self-objectification in
Without a doubt, it is been Enough. It is time to bring light and awareness to the mass media. It is time to take this matter much more serious. It is our future generation that is on the line. It is time to create a safe and better environment for them to grown on.
In today’s modern culture, almost all forms of popular media play a significant role in bombarding young people, particularly young females, with what happens to be society’s idea of the “ideal body”. This ideal is displayed all throughout different media platforms such as magazine adds, television and social media – the idea of feminine beauty being strictly a flawless thin model. The images the media displays send a distinct message that in order to be beautiful you must look a certain way. This ideal creates and puts pressure on the young female population viewing these images to attempt and be obsessed with obtaining this “ideal body”. In the process of doing so this unrealistic image causes body dissatisfaction, lack of self-confidence
“I’m so fat, why can’t I be skinny just like her!” “How does she get the perfect body, while I’m stuck with all of this fat!” These statements are common among teenage girls of today’s society. Social media of today shows unreal pictures of photoshopped models and the “perfect life”. This leads to discontent of young women with their body and lives.
Social media plays a big role in how society portrays body image. “Alternatively, an increased number of Facebook friends may provide girls with greater opportunity to rapidly make multiple social comparisons, itself shown to be associated with body image concern”(Tiggemann and Slater 82). According to the survey that was taken by Marika Tiggemann and Amy Slater, the more Facebook friends the girls had, the more likely it was that they had body image concerns. They were able to compare themselves to the other girls that they were friends with, which led to them to have an increase in their drive for thinness. “Further, these comparisons are likely to be with somewhat idealised images, in that girls mostly post photographs in which they look good or are doing something ‘cool’ (and can be digitally altered)”(Tiggemann and Slater 82).
What is sociological imagination? C. Wright Mills defined the sociological imagination as the capacity for individuals to understand the relationship between their individual lives and the broad social forces that influence them. In other words, the sociological imagination helps people link their own individual biographies to the broader forces of social life: "Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both" (Mills 1959). In this assignment. I will use the sociological imagination to analyze a situation which had a huge impact on me, which will be body image and how media and family affect it.
What social media is doing to teens Social media is a very dangerous place that makes teens feel insecure. Teens spend more than one-third of their day on social media looking at stereotypical images of “perfect” bodies and people. As a result, they become insecure about themselves because they are not like the people in the pictures. The media states that a perfect person is skinny, tan, has shiny hair, straight teeth, and completely clear skin. However, because teens are going through a lot of physical changes they do not usually look like social media 's definition of perfect and they become insecure.
Whether it’s magazine covers, instagram, twitter, on television or just on the world wide web in general, everywhere we look we see stunning models. Models that are incredibly thin and can look good in anything. Our society is obsessed with how perfect they look, yet at the end of the day women everywhere looks in the mirror and doesn’t see the body of the girl she sees on social media. Even though women come in all shapes and sizes in nature, the expectation to have a skinny, perfect body just seems to be the expectation for our society nowadays. Society puts too much pressure on females to have the perfect body.
Nowadays, many teenagers imitate famous people that they followed on Instagram. This could have an effect on another factor such as their self-esteem. Following strangers such as celebrities and models may cause the individuals to have a lower self-esteem and feel dissatisfied with their life by seeing the pictures celebrities post day-to-day about their lavish lifestyles, “perfect” bodies, and pretty faces (Wallis 2015). Next, other studies done to test the exposure of images of models to girls have found that participants who viewed pictures of the models reported a significantly lower body satisfaction and self-esteem report than those in the control group who were not exposed to any models (“Social Media and Self Esteem - Dos &Don’t for Teens and Parents”). In addition, another study in Germany call this phenomenon the “self-promotion-envy spiral,” and it happens when Instagram users compare themselves to the people they’re connected to on the platform (Dion, “The Effect of Instagram on Self-Esteem and Life Satisfaction”).
INFORMATION Social media has to be one of the greatest developments of human history. It has connected humanity like never before. It has changed the way that people do business, with companies providing their own social media accounts to interact in real time with customers. We can quickly see what’s going on in our communities and around the world.
Meaghan Ramsey's TED Talk "Why thinking you're ugly is bad for you" is a powerful speech about low body confidence. Ramsey talks about how society's pressure to be perfect is one of the main reason for young girls' (and boys') low body confidence and how these feelings of low esteem can impact their lives and futures. I chose to analyze this speech because I have experienced low body confidence and I have felt those feelings of low self-esteem. In Meaghan Ramsey's speech "Why thinking you're ugly is bad for you", she discusses how low body confidence is undermining academic achievement, damaging health, and limiting the economic potential of today's youth who are growing up in a world of social media. Ramsey has a strong start to her speech, using a photo and a story about her niece to gain the attention of the audience.
Social media is a powerful source in today’s society, 81% of the population in the United States alone has set up a social media profile. Many use the media for useful things, like educational opportunities and business inquiries. Although there are people who may look at it more in a concerning aspect. Many people today view the social media as a stage where they are judged and told what the real way to look and act is, more specifically, body image. Social Media has a negative impact on body image, through creating a perfect view physically which affects someone mentally, targeting both male and female, and turning away from the real goal of social media.
Today everyone is obsessed with social media. People are easily influenced by almost everything they come across on the internet including appearance and body image. In todays generation it is so common to be unhappy with the way you look. All this is due to societies high standards on the way we “should” look. With social media you can do many things, including pretending to be someone you are not.
We are constantly scrolling through the virtual lives of other people and whether we realise it or not we are often comparing our lives to those that fill op our social media feed. We upload things about ourselves online mostly for others to view and we then rely on the network of people online to accept or reject our content. With social media we are constantly comparing ourselves to others, it becomes an unconscious action. Not only on what you post on social media and how many likes your post can get but also by what you are exposed to, mindlessly
Social Media: Affects Relationships As technology progresses more and more, there have been great changes that have made our lives more easy and efficient. There are many advantages that technology has brought upon us, one in particular is the Internet. The Internet has allowed people to be connected quickly to information and be updated to the issues and happenings around us, but the social networks that have been invented to allow long distance connection have been resulting in negative outcomes for society and our generation. Social media gets in the way of building actual relationships, makes people become inauthentic about their lives and lowers their self-esteem, and has become a dangerous and threatening nature. During these days, it seems as if nobody can live without checking their social media accounts, whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.
For years people have played the “blame game” with media and its effects on society. It has been questioned whether the media helps or hurts more in its overall impacts. The media consists of magazines, advertisements, TV shows, and social pages such as Instagram, SnapChat, Twitter, and Facebook, all in which society seems to be addicted to. The real question is, is having all of these sources of media positively or negatively affecting society? Some people blame the media for harming society by causing eating disorders and a low self esteem.