Social Media Leads Children to Hate Their Bodies and Feel Embarrassed About Their Appearance

The Guardian newspaper reported the conclusions of a study showing that 3 out of 4 children under the age of 12 hate their bodies and feel embarrassed about how they look. The percentage rises to 8 out of every 10 young people between the ages of 18 and 21, the study emphasizes.

The findings are based on a new survey of 1,024 children and young people, between the ages of 12 and 21, by the youth mental health charity stem4.

According to the foundation, only one young person out of every 10 who suffers from these problems receives treatment, which, according to the company, calls for urgent action.

 

Flagrant Symptoms

The study warned that social media poses a great danger to the immediate and future health of young generations. Nearly half of the 12- to 21-year-olds participating in the study said they became withdrawn, exercised excessively, stopped socializing altogether, and sometimes self-harmed because of the regular online bullying of their physical appearance.

4 in 10 admitted that they suffer from psychological crises, with nearly 1 in 5 suffering from problems with body image and 14% suffering from eating difficulties, such as depriving themselves of food, binge eating, or even vomiting.

According to the survey, 97% of children under the age of 12 use social media, although almost 70% said that social media makes them feel stressed, anxious and depressed. Nearly two-thirds expressed concern about the duration of their daily use of social media platforms. Knowing that the average time they spend on communication platforms exceeds 3 and a half hours per day.

Commenting on the findings of this study, Nihara Krause, CEO of stem4, told The Guardian: “We need to improve understanding of the potentially compelling impact of social media content, and the reinforcement created through algorithms, on young people’s engagement with apps and their consequent mental health.”

These results come at a time when there is concern about the impact of social media on young people’s mental health after a series of incidents that illustrate the existence of crises afflicting an entire generation. The results of this survey are very worrying, said Krause.

She continued by saying that when young people use social media applications to search for information and advice, they often encounter inaccurate information or distorted and harmful facts, which exacerbates the problem.

 

Devastating İmpact

Participants admitted that they continued to use the applications, despite their fears that their mental health might be harmed as a result of consuming content directed by algorithms on communication platforms. Their ages are between 18 and 21 years old.

Despite this, 95% of respondents said they felt helpless when trying to quit using social media platforms. They admitted that they were more likely to turn to social media apps to overcome negative feelings about their body image rather than talking to friends and family.

One young person revealed: “Social media is definitely negatively affecting me. As young people, we constantly compare ourselves to good-looking people online. On sites like TikTok, the only people you see are gorgeous due to the algorithms, and that makes us feel really bad about ourselves.”

Another commented: “Social media has a huge impact on how we see ourselves. I feel pressured to look like something that has been edited and altered. If social media didn’t exist, I wouldn’t compare myself or be compared: I’d just get on with life.”

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, demand for NHS eating disorders services for children and adolescents has increased by two-thirds. Between April and December 2021, 10,000 young people started treatment, knowing that the financial restrictions imposed make it available only to those who need it most.

The Center for Combating Digital Hate in Britain (non-governmental) published recent research which showed that the recommendation algorithm from TikTok displays content that encourages self-harm and eating disorders to adolescents within minutes of expressing interest in the topics.

At the time, a spokesperson for TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, which has more than a billion users worldwide, considered that the study did not reflect the experience or viewing habits of the application’s users in reality.

“We regularly consult with health experts, remove content that violates our policies, and provide access to supportive resources to anyone who needs them.”

 

Social Media Pressure

The BBC revealed that young people are turning to plastic surgery, such as Botox and dermal fillers, as a result of social media pressure, according to a recent scientific study.

The study, conducted by the Nuffield Council of Bioethics in Britain, says that the government must protect people from any unregulated industry in reference to social networking sites.

The study also criticizes facial manipulation apps and online plastic surgery games aimed at children under the age of nine.

The study authors fear that these apps are contributing to growing anxiety about body appearance among young people.

Most of the activities of the cosmetic surgery sector are not regulated, so it is difficult to obtain reliable data on its size.

The BBC stated that a market research firm estimated that the plastic surgery market in the UK could be worth £3.6 billion.

The CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, Imran Ahmed, welcomed the findings of the new study. Social media platforms exacerbate adolescents’ negative feelings about body image, eating disorders, and mental health, he said.

“TikTok was designed to impress young users into giving up their time and attention, but without the firewalls their algorithm could turn deadly at an incredible speed,” he added.

In turn, Ged Flynn, CEO of the Babirus Charitable Foundation to promote positive mental health among young people, welcomed the conclusions reached by the new study. He said that social media is one of the issues that puts “unprecedented pressure” on today’s youth and “drives some of them to lose hope.”

In a study conducted by Flinders University in Australia, there was a relationship linking the time a girl spends on the Internet with low self-esteem and her dissatisfaction with her body image.

After interviewing more than 1,000 high school girls, the researchers found that social networking sites contributed to an increase in conversations about physical appearance.

Although 80% of the girls participating in the survey have a normal weight, almost half (46%) were not satisfied with their bodies.

These figures indicate that many young women’s concerns about their body image are not really related to being overweight but rather to comparing themselves to the unrealistic standards set by celebrities, which are, in fact, far from normal.