Study confirms social media's depressing impact on our body image

Scrolling for 90 seconds is all it takes

Experts suggest reducing daily screen time or mixing up the content we absorb. Image: Pexels

Recent research has found women can suffer poor mental health and body issues after just 90 seconds of watching short-form videos on social media.

If you’ve found yourself in a social media hole, scrolling through the accounts of the genetically blessed, you’re not alone.

But these long, toned legs, flat stomachs, full lips and blemish-free visages can have a detrimental effect on your mental health.

What’s worse is that we don’t even need to be stuck in this ‘social media hole’ to feel these effects. In fact, researchers from the University of NSW say exposure to short-form TikTok and Instagram videos are enough to leave you feeling down in the dumps and body conscious.  

“Appearance-ideal content can pressure women to look a certain way that is unrealistic or completely unattainable,” Dr Jasmine Fardouly, senior author of the study from the School of Psychology at UNSW Science explained.

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Fardouly’s comment is nothing new, but it is who’s absorbing this aesthetics-based content that’s worrying.

“We know this starts early, with girls as young as six reporting unhappiness with their bodies, desires to look thinner, and even dieting to lose weight,” she said, adding that appearance dissatisfaction is associated with mental health disorders like depression and clinical eating disorders.

“Social media isn’t the only place where these appearance ideals are promoted, but there is a lot more opportunity to internalise them through the platforms,” Fardouly said.

Fardouly and her team wanted to learn more, so they showed 211 women aged between 17 and 28 images or videos selected from Instagram and TikTok accounts helmed by young female social media influencers. There were 10 posts in total.

Participants were then surveyed on body image measures, like comparing content featuring people, and content without.

Social media isn’t the only place where these appearance ideals are promoted, but there is a lot more opportunity to internalise them through the platforms. Image: iStock

“We found that appearance-ideal short-form video content on social media, regardless of the medium, can have adverse effects on appearance satisfaction, negative mood, and self-objectification among participants,” Jade Gurtala, an honours graduate in psychology and lead author of the study said.

The team found the women compared their own bodies to the women in the “appearance ideal” content and found themselves less attractive.

These findings are sad, but not shocking. However, it’s the shortness of time that the participants’ self-esteem plunged that’s concerning.

“The total exposure time was only like a minute and a half, and we found that was enough to have harmful impacts,” Fardouly added.

“That was just in a lab-based setting, so it’ll be interesting to measure the impact of exposure over the long-term and whether that has some cumulative effect.” 

The team found the women compared their own bodies to the women in the “appearance ideal” content, and found themselves less attractive. Image: iStock

The problem with social media editing and enhancements

We’ve all fiddled with filters – and some have even left us wishing they were real. But are we growing tired of seeing these picture-perfect, edited and manipulated influencers telling us what the buy, how to work out, and what to put in our bodies?

According to Fardouly and Gurtala, yes, but did you know enhanced clips and images are becoming harder to detect because they’re so damn realistic.

Basically, what you might deem as the perfect body type or face – someone you’d like to emulate – could actually be fabricated, making them an impossible and completely unrealistic goal.

It also turns out that video content is worse for our wellness than static images.

“If appearance-ideal video content is perceived as unedited and enhanced when it in reality is, then users may be more likely to engage in negative social comparisons and internalise the appearance ideals,” Gurtala said.

“So, viewing ideal video content may be more harmful than viewing ideal image content for some users.”

Social media could be doing your health more harm than good. Image: Getty

Where do we go from here?

The study’s participants reported spending between two to three hours on social media each day – that’s a lot.

So, the experts suggest reducing daily screen time or mixing up the content we absorb.

“There’s also a role for the platforms, which can have very pervasive algorithms that promote appearance ideals and keep users engaged, to help expand the range of content shown to users in their social media feeds,” Gurtala explained.

Originally published as Study confirms social media's depressing impact on our body image