تأثير التواصل الاجتماعي على المراهقين
بقلم الكاتبة / لينا صالح الغامدي
Social media is growing very powerful, providing us with all the information in mere seconds with minimum effort. Nowadays, it is rare to see a person with no social media apps like Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. It has become a somewhat mandatory routine for adolescents to check through these apps thoroughly most of the time leaving unrealistic standards of beauty and body image. These toxic social media ideologies and standards are causing many mental and physical health problems to teenagers all around the world.
Body image has been widely influenced by social media to the point where most advertisements are mostly directed at how people should look. For a long time, Advertisements have been playing a significant role in shaping society. There is a hidden commercial element in these types of advertisements, as their main goal is to market their products by creating false fantasies about the perfect look. These are harmful and force expectations to the younger generation and can be seen in these cultural times as it has been translated into social media.
In general, the media is an extremely powerful place to express opinions which is the reason why body image negativity is one of the greatest challenges young people face. The massive growth of using social media allowed people to inform their ideas, theories, and models on how bodies should look to the public. The media has completely brainwashed us to refuse every single flaw detected in our bodies and how beauty is limited to only specific people. The more younger kids spend on social media comparing every inch of their bodies to photoshopped images, the worse they feel about themselves. A study shows results “Furthermore, upward comparisons through social media had the worst impact of any context on women’s mood. These findings suggest that appearance comparisons through social media may be particularly harmful to young women’s mental and physical health. Given the popularity of social media among young women, it is important to reduce the frequency of such pernicious social media comparisons in women’s everyday lives”( Fardouly) It is clear that most young people face daily reminders on how imperfect they are with the strict and toxic mentalities social media influences on them. It is important to limit teenagers to a certain amount of screen time and help them differentiate between the real and digital world.
The media’s portrayal of bodies and unattainable beauty standards that are shown to adolescents cause many social and mental issues, “The second way social media causes depression anxiety is from the stress produced from constantly trying to project an unrealistic and unachievable perception of perfection within your social network. The social anxiety of stress is associated with trying to project a perfect self at all times.”(Amedie) The struggle to obtain the perfect image is damaging and leads to depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem all affecting their lives. Experiencing such comparisons at a young age is harmful as adolescence is a transitional period that is already dealing with physical and mental changes, to add on that will drain the energy and spirit that they need to bear adulthood and its issues and intensifies social pressure on them.
Social media has surely made its impact on society, yet the beliefs they encourage are not realistic. If anything, I wish somebody would have told me how fake social media can be and how people photoshop almost everything to look ideal when in reality nothing is perfect and that is normal. Since we all have our personalities, ethnicities, and body types none of them have to be measured if worthy or not. Our bodies do so much for us it protects, heals, and helps us do our tasks, that should be enough to appreciate your body. Teenagers around the world should recognize the harmful toxicity social media influences on them and help defeat these standards.
Cite list
1- Fardouly, Jasmine, et al. “The Impact of Appearance Comparisons Made through Social Media, Traditional Media, and in Person in Women's Everyday Lives.” Body Image, Elsevier, 28 Nov. 2016, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1740144516303217. 2- Amedie, Jacob. The Impact of social media on Society. scholarcommons.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=engl_176
Lina Saleh Al-Ghamdi 2021