Social Media Causing Insecurities in Body Image

We’ve all known that feeling when you see someone on Instagram with that gorgeous new handbag or that makeup someone is wearing. You want it. You aspire to be like them, and that's fine, until you realise that you can’t be like them and that’s where the problem begins. Social media was designed so that you could see what everyone is doing every second of the day. But do we really need to know what everyone is doing every second of the day? If you think about it that way it sounds just that bit creepier.

Some people might argue that social media can be good helping to create connections, keep in contact and motivate you to be better and more like the people you see on social media. Whether or not teenagers should use social media is a complicated issue because although there are many benefits of social media such as keeping in contact with people, sharing job opportunities and resources. As well as helping find criminals, it can also raise money and awareness. But this argument is misguided because the average teenager doesn’t actually need to do any of this. What tends to happen is teenagers end up wasting time and using social media for things that aren’t so good. If social media was used responsibly these problems wouldn’t come up so much. The actual topic that should be discussed is that social media really affects the way teenagers think of themselves. Social Media can cause depression, anxiety and self esteem issues such as bullying as well as body image problems. This promotes teenagers to do unhealthy things to themselves in order to appear ‘ideal’ to society. To much social media can be bad for teenagers and people should promote less time spent using social media. Except when teens are using social media to help them stay in touch or if it is keeping them from doing other harmful things.There are many benefits to using social media however social media can be bad especially for teenagers who are vulnerable to depression and self esteem issues.

Social media can cause insecurity in teenagers. Now of days teenagers are using far too much social media such as Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook. I’m not saying that they are bad but that we should be cautious of how much we use them and what we use them for. Social media leads teenagers into false impressions seeing a post and thinking that is what I should look like causing them to become insecure of themselves. Something on social media, a post of a beautiful girl (probably photoshopped and edited). Leaves you thinking that you are not ‘ideal to society’. According to an article on Teen Health and the Media, “One study reports that at age 13, 53 percent of American girls are ‘unhappy with their bodies.’ This grows to 78 percent by the time girls reach 17.” This is significant as that is a lot of girls who don’t feel good in their own body. Feeling confident in your own body is really important as so much is going on in your life that you don’t need to be worrying about what you look like. Now of days people spend way too much time worrying about things that they don’t need anything else to worry about. According to Clean Cut Media “Almost across the nation 50% of young girls are engaged in negative activities such as injuring and cutting themselves or engaging in unhealthy eating habits and disorders due to self-esteem and self-image issues.” (2009).

Don’t you wonder why they do this? The cause is low self esteem that has been caused by social media. Social media is away to brag about your life and if you are already insecure enough the pressure can just be too much. You should never feel the need to injure yourself or do unhealthy things. I have known people to be upset and insecure about themselves and it has been related to social media. Social media causes many problems and insecurity is a big one especially in teenagers where they are most vulnerable to being insecure of their bodys. Especially when all those beautiful edited photos are posted. Body image is very important to many people and I understand that. Especially now in this time and age where it has become ‘normal’ to try and be ideal and have the perfect image. Did you know that in America 57% of girls have mothers who criticizes her looks. (Girl Self-Esteem & Image Issues & Parents, 2009). How would you feel if your parents or children criticized you on how you looked? Parents aren’t supposed to make their children feel insecure. Children already have enough of that at school and that is the last thing they need. 

Social media provides another place for bullies to hurt people. On social media things can be done anonymously and for some reason people think that it is different than face to face bullying. Let me tell you this there is no difference. While many people feel that bullying on social media is a problem. How many are actually trying to stop it? According to Social Networking ProCon “49.5% of students reported being the victims of bullying online and 33.7% reported committing bullying behavior online. [110] 800,000 minors were harassed or cyber bullied on Facebook according to a June 2012 Consumer Reports survey.” (Networking ProCon, 2015) Bullying is not nice and can make people feel insecure and have anxiety. No one wants to be bullied but often the bullies are the ones who are insecure. Everyone remembers when QuizYourFriends was popular. Someone who was obviously insecure took my quiz and said some really horrible things to me. Probably trying to make themselves feel better by taking pride in making someone else feel insecure. Social media offers just the place to do this. Cyberbullying is linked with depression. "There were consistent associations between exposure to cyberbullying and increased likelihood of depression," Hamm told Livescience.(Pappas, 2015). Bullying makes people upset and depressed and insecure. It’s all a vicious circle. "Kids really are hesitant to tell anyone when cyberbullying occurs," Hamm said. "There seems to be a common fear that if they tell their parents, for example, they'll lose their Internet access." Kids shouldn’t have to be scared to report bullying, parents are supposed to help in these situations. But it also provides a way of communication. According to Top Ten Social Media “Statistics show that 70% of adults have used social media sites to connect with relatives in other states, and 57% of teens have reported making new friendships on social media sites.” Social media is a lot quicker then sending an email and if your followers are people you want to keep in contact as soon as you post they get notified. It’s way easier. I use social media and don’t see a problem as long as you use it responsibly. The problem is that some people don’t.

Overall social media can be good helping people to stay connected, but people can waste lots of time on it. Social media can be bad causing teenagers to feel insecure, depressed and have self esteem issues such as not being confident in their body image. If people spent less time on social media there would be less of this trouble. Although social media can be good in some cases. It affects teenagers and how they think of themselves but in the end everyone uses it and it is the individual's responsibility to use it wisely. I hope that you can see how much social media can affect you and the way you think about your body. Please understand that social media causes many problems that you just don’t need especially in your teenage years.

Bibliography:

Pappas, Stephanie. "Cyberbullying on Social Media Linked to Teen Depression." Live Science. Live Science, 22 June 2015. Web. 14 Mar. 2016.


O'Brien, Shaelyn, and Camryn Reid. "Social Media: A New Source of Insecurities." The Highlander Online. Highlander Online, 18 Nov. 2014. Web. 08 Mar. 2016.

"Social Networking ProCon.org." ProConorg Headlines. ProCon.ORG, 24 Mar. 2015. Web. 13 Mar. 2016.

TopTenSM. "10 Pros and Cons of Social Media." Top Ten Social Media. Top 10 SM, n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2016.