Social media has created unrealistic beauty standards that have led to low self esteem in teenagers today. The results of a survey conducted by the Royal Society for Public Health asking 14-24 year olds in the UK how social media impacted their well being proved that popular social media platforms lead to an increase of depression and anxiety in teens. “Editing apps such as FaceTune—which saw usage increase by 20% at the beginning of the pandemic and has over 1 million edited images exported daily—allow users to smooth, shrink and sharpen their way to perfection” ( Faibes, From ‘Instagram Face’ To ‘Snapchat Dysmorphia’: How Beauty Filters Are Changing The Way We See Ourselves). Apps like Facetune are commonly used by celebrities and influencers when posting on social media. When an insecure teenager scrolls on social media and only sees heavily photoshopped images of flawless people in their twenties, it’s hard for them to not compare their body to the body they see on the screen and wonder why they don’t look like that. Seeing photos of flawless people on our feed everyday has promoted unrealistic beauty expectations for teenagers. When I used to scroll on TikTok or Instagram I often found myself feeling disappointed when I realized I didn’t look like the girls who get over a million likes for just being pretty. But after distancing myself from social media and realizing that it wasn’t healthy to compare the body of a 15 year old girl who was still growing to the body of a model in her 20s , I found myself feeling more content with my appearance. 40% of teenagers said images on social media had caused them to worry about body image (Mental Health Foundation). Teenage girls have become more insecure now than ever, due to the unrealistic beauty standards social media has created. Have you ever told yourself you’re only going to go on your phone for five minutes but before you know it, it’s been an hour? Do you find yourself delaying tasks to look at your phone? Ever questioned why it is so difficult for you to put your phone down? Social media apps are designed for you to never want to leave them. So no, Instagram sending you four different notifications after you haven’t been on it for thirty minutes isn’t a coincidence. Social media apps use “the dopamine effect” which is, “our brain’s way of recording what’s worth doing again” (Brown, Trapped – the secret ways social media is built to be addictive). Dopamine is released in our brain after positive experiences such as receiving a good grade or taking a bite out of delicious food. Having a positive experience on social media such as receiving likes or seeing a funny video causes dopamine to release in our brains, making us enjoy the feeling of checking social media and wanting to do it more (Trapped – the secret ways social media is built to be addictive). This is one of the ways social media apps get us always wanting to be on our phone. So how can anyone not be addicted to social media when these apps are literally designed for us to constantly be on them? There isn’t actually a lot of complexity to this answer, the main way is to keep a life outside of social media. Unfortunately, most of the new generation has grown up on social media making them attached to their phones and nearly impossible for them to imagine a life without it.
matcha for the mind 