Social Media and Body Image Concerns: Current Research and Future Directions

By Jasmine Fardouly, Lenny R. Vartanian. 2016

678 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper provides an overview of research on social media and body image. Correlational studies consistently show that social media usage (particularly Facebook) is associated with body image concerns among young women and men, and longitudinal studies suggest that this association may strengthen over time. Furthermore, appearance comparisons play a role in the relationship between social media and body image. Experimental studies, however, suggest that brief exposure to one's own Facebook account does not negatively impact young women's appearance concerns. Further longitudinal and experimental research is needed to determine which aspects of social media are most detrimental to people's body image concerns. Research is also needed on more diverse samples as well as other social media platforms (e.g., Instagram).

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Marketing, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/215d362e80daeb83588c0c3a4c2f0157fbc376da

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Citations in the corpus

Passive social networking site use and well-being: The mediating roles of social comparison and the fear of missing out (2019, background): “Physical appearance is relevant as ample research has demonstrated links between SNS use and body image concerns as a result of the attractive images others post online (for a review, see Fardouly & Vartanian, 2016).”
The relationship between Instagram use and indicators of mental health: A systematic review (2021, background): “…and moderating role of social comparison in the relationship between SNS use and indicators of mental health such as depressive symptomatology, body image and disordered eating (Appel et al., 2016; Fardouly & Vartanian, 2016; Holland & Tiggemann, 2016; McLean et al., 2019; Verduyn et al., 2017).”
Instagram use and young women’s body image concerns and self-objectification: Testing mediational pathways (2018, background): “…primary use is for posting and sharing images, researchers have suggested that Instagram may be more detrimental to women’s appearance concerns than other social media platforms (such as Facebook) that contain more varied content (e.g. Fardouly and Vartanian, 2016; Holland and Tiggemann, 2016).”
Instagram Use and Self-Objectification: The Roles of Internalization, Comparison, Appearance Commentary, and Feminism (2018, background): “In fact, one recent study found a positive correlation between Facebook usage and self-objectification, with appearance comparison (particularly comparing one’s appearance to peers) mediating this link (Fardouly & Vartanian, 2016).”