Conclusion

By Morgan Clark

            The emergence of social media in the 21st century has connected people across the world, bridging the gaps of cultural, linguistic and physical barriers, which have broadened the understanding of the world without a plane ticket. However, communicating with people of different backgrounds, learning knowledge otherwise untouched and sharing a passion with a community lies a sinister phenomenon plaguing a large percentage of internet users, specifically young women. 

An influx of content pertaining to and reinforcing a beauty standard has made social media a powerful tool of influence for young women and girls who are vulnerable to these harmful narratives. 

Beauty standards have long been pushed on women via the media for decades; social media has only streamlined those standards and intensified its effects. With efforts to counter unrealistic beauty standards, like the body neutrality movement, many of these efforts are insincere and are used as marketing leverage to sell products or remedies to help women regain their self-confidence. TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat have a higher percentage of women users than men. Women are susceptible to comparison and interactions with harmful content surrounding body image, self-esteem and trend cycles. Women are seen as mere objects and reflections of the ideal beauty standard, with other social media users being the judge of how closely they imitate the unrealistic standard. 

Trends move continuously faster as we cycle through different wellness, beauty and aesthetic trends. Not only are these fast-moving trends harmful to the over-consumption habits of today’s society, but they also apply unnecessary pressure to conform to these trends. Diet culture has also manifested in these trends: making the female body a target for enforcing body shape or beauty standard trends. Social media has chosen a female body type as the “ideal” every few months before cycling to a different body type, making a female body type into a trend. Content like “What I Eat in a Day” videos on TikTok or Instagram are extremely harmful to viewers– oftentimes disguising disordered eating habits as “healthy” or removing context to the nuance of why someone has the eating habits they do.

Social Media becomes a highlight reel of an individual’s life, but the viewer only sees what they are shown and therefore often conclude that someone has the perfect, curated life based on their social media feed. Influencers are proof of The Agenda-Setting Theory, because they use social media to portray a certain standard of wealth, beauty,or status to their viewers, encouraging them to subscribe to these standards. 

Although increased media literacy has made internet users more aware that social media is an idealized version of reality, users can still subconsciously compare themselves and their lives to what they see online. Identity Construction is an impactful aspect of social media; individuals form their sense of identity based on their lived experiences, which can include media portrayals. 

Solutions to the problems of social media have been proposed, including self-acceptance, body neutrality and deleting social media entirely. However, the question remains: is there a healthy way to be active on social media sites without damaging self-esteem? Would users have to entirely reconstruct social media to prevent harmful content from being shared? 

It appears that with the current state of social media, it is impossible to be present on social media sites without encountering harmful content. It is impossible to prevent individuals subconscious from making comparisons about their appearance, wealth status, material belongings and character, even if they make efforts to prevent it. Comparison is natural; however, the only difference is the scale. To witness, intimately, the lives of hundreds (if not thousands) of people every day has a significant impact on the way individuals view their lives. 

It is difficult to measure or quantify those impacts, but they are ever-present. Individuals can only consider how different their lives would be in the absence of social media and if they could ever return to a state without it ever again. Can the world ever return to what it was like before social media or are the impacts forever ingrained in the human spirit? Can individuals now protect current and future generations of young girls from being impacted by the implications of beauty standards and comparisons via social media? Are these harmful ideologies too deeply ingrained in society to be removed? 

Perhaps the only way to combat the growing pressures of conforming to unrealistic beauty standards, body dissatisfaction, and negative body image is to reject the narratives present on social media in totality. Perhaps allow no space for these conversations and content to take root in algorithms. Discourage society to talk about other people’s physical appearance as harmful and a faux pas. Holding content creators accountable when promoting or reinforcing these standards while increasing media literacy of viewers, ensuring that social media users are aware of the nuances of sharing their lives on social media. Content creators take initiative in being transparent about the context of their content. 

Although there is a standstill in confronting the phenomenon, individuals must continue to be critical consumers of social media content and be informed of the nuances behind what they see online. It is impossible to predict the future of the cycling of beauty standards and unrealistic expectations for women, but there’s a certain accountability that must take into consideration when subscribing to and unknowingly allowing these standards to have a presence in society.