By Tiffany Tao
Staff Writer
Social media negatively impacts teenagers’ confidence by enforcing unrealistic beauty standards. It evolved from a form of communication with friends to platforms for posting photos of an idealized life. As the pandemic forced students to stare at themselves on a screen for an entire school year, the importance of online image and pressure to always be camera-ready only increased.
For a year and a half, the pandemic confined teenagers indoors, moving their social activity online. Digital images were the only pictures we saw of each other, and the instinct to erase acne and pores with Snapchat filters plague us every time we post something. Filters can blur blemishes and Adobe Photoshop can make thighs smaller, but there is nothing wrong with the natural development of our bodies. The stress to imitate the same online perfection is overbearing as we contemplate what to wear and how to look.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Michigan examined 90 studies about the effect of social media regarding body image concerns in women. They showed a correlation between media exposure and a decrease in body positivity while also discovering an increase in the internalization of beauty ideals.
Beauty standards are especially damaging for people of color due to society’s emphasis on Eurocentric features. The nose bridge and wide eyes, more common in white people, are less common occurrences in people of color and the expectation to have the Western look is unrealistic. However, magazines repeatedly favor featuring white-looking people of color and shy away from authentic representations of ethnic features. There is power and acceptance in embracing diverse characteristics and any publication advertising otherwise is wrong.
Transparency from the fashion and beauty industry is an immediate solution to stop the support the media gives to unattainable beauty standards. In Australia, the National Advisory Group on Body Image endorsed the use of warning labels by the media to point out altered images. The false narrative that hard work and dieting are the only components to obtain perfect bodies will shatter once we normalize different body shapes.
Some are already dismantling the illusions of social media and are good reminders of the natural beauty in different faces. The Instagram account @celebface exposes the real celebrity faces behind heavy filters, and TCHS’s Body Image and Eating Disorder Awareness Club promotes acceptance of different body types and educates students on eating disorders. They are daily reminders that perfection is subjective and self-confidence is liberating.
The expectation to follow impossible beauty standards is harmful to self-esteem, especially as social media continues to sell fantasy as reality in this toxic environment of comparison. It is not you who needs to change, but rather the expectations and standards of society that ask too much from you.