Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Cutting Down on Social Media Brings Quick Boost to Teens' Self-Image

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay.

All those images of beautiful-looking people on social media can deflate a young person's self-image, but there may be an easy fix: limiting time spent on TikTok, Instagram, and the like.

A new Canadian study finds that teens and young adults who already had symptoms of anxiety or depression and who cut their social media usage by about 50% experienced a significant improvement in how they felt about their overall appearance in just a few weeks. They also felt better about their weight.

In a news release about the study, lead author Gary Goldfield, a senior scientist with the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute, said that whether people who already have body and mental health issues simply spend more time on social media or whether social media leads to greater issues had not been known.

For this study, the researchers worked with 220 undergraduate students ages 17 to 25. About 76% were women, 23% men and 1% other.

Participants needed to regularly use social media for at least two hours each day on their smartphones.

Each was asked to respond to statements about their appearance, such as "I'm pretty happy about the way I look" or "I am satisfied with my weight" on a 5-point scale at the start and end of the experiment.

During the first week, all participants were asked to use social media as they typically would. A screen-time tracking program measured their usage.

After that, half were asked to use social media for no more than 60 minutes a day.

The participants who were asked to restrict their social media usage got it down to 78 minutes a day on average. The control group averaged 188 minutes daily.

After three weeks, those who reduced their social media usage had a significant improvement in how they regarded their overall appearance and body weight after the intervention, compared with the control group, which saw no significant change, the researchers said.

The study findings were published in the journal Psychology of Popular Media.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/eating-disorders-2659435251.html

Disconnection, Not Teens' Screen Time, Is the Problem

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by Phys.org.

While many parents and caregivers believe teens spend too much time on smartphones, video games, and social media, a Michigan State University researcher says not to worry about screen time.

Keith Hampton, a professor in the Department of Media and Information and director of academic research in the Quello Center, says he doesn't worry about screen time—he worries about adolescents who are disconnected because they have limited access to the internet.

"Teens who are disconnected from today's technologies are more isolated from their peers, which can lead to problems," Hampton said.

"Many young people are struggling with their mental health. While adolescents often grapple with self-esteem issues related to body image, peers, family and school, disconnection is a much greater threat than screen time. Social media and video games are deeply integrated into youth culture, and they do more than entertain. They help kids to socialize, they contribute to identity formation and provide a channel for social support."

"Rural teens are the last remaining natural control group if we want insight into the mental health of adolescents who have no choice but to be disconnected from screens," Hampton said.

In a paper based on a survey of 3,258 rural adolescents, Hampton and his team compared the self-esteem and social activities of teens with no or poor home internet access to teens who are the heaviest users of screens as well as teens with parents who tightly control or limit their screen use.

The single largest predictor of having lower self-esteem was, simply, being a girl.

Teens who had poor internet access at home and teens who had parents that exerted the most control over their media use also had substantively lower self-esteem—although only roughly half of the lower self-esteem experienced by a typical girl or those with low academic performance.

The amount of time teens spent on screens, whether it was watching videos, playing games, or using social media, did not play a big role in teens' self-esteem. Even teens who were "excessive" users of screens reported higher self-esteem than those who were disconnected because they had poor internet access or their parents exerted a lot of control over their time online.

Why? Because media is deeply integrated into youth culture.

"Isolation doesn't come from being online, it comes from being disconnected from those sources of entertainment and socialization that permeate teens' lives," Hampton said. "For most teens, that's social media, video games and sharing the videos they watch online. It is often how teens get their information, communicate and share."

The research was published in Social Science Computer Review.

Source: Phys.org
https://phys.org/news/2022-11-disconnection-teens-screen-problem.html

Are Kids Too Self-Conscious? 2 in 3 Are Insecure About Their Looks

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by StudyFinds.

Mental health issues are a growing concern among young children and teens, according to a new national poll by a team at the University of Michigan. In fact, two in three parents say their child feels insecure about their appearance. One in three parents say their child has been bullied or made fun of because of their looks.

“Children begin forming opinions about their bodies and looks at a very young age,” says Susan Woolford, MD, MPH, a child obesity expert and pediatrician at the University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and Mott Poll co-director, in a university release. “These findings reinforce research that as kids receive unhealthy messages about societal ideals, it can lead to a poor self-image of themselves. Left unchecked, a preoccupation with appearance and body dissatisfaction may lead to decreased mental health and emotional well-being and increase risks for eating disorders, depression, and low self-esteem.”

Feeling uncomfortable about looks and appearances can negatively impact an adolescent’s self-esteem and potentially breed body image issues. In the poll, one in five parents says their teenage children dislike taking pictures because they feel self-conscious.

The C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll surveyed 1,653 parents with at least one child between the ages of eight and 18. Common reasons for these insecurities included weight issues, skin conditions such as acne, and dissatisfaction with their hair. Parents note that their children were less likely to feel awkward about their height or facial features. However, one in five parents of girls adds their child felt self-conscious about their breasts.

About a third of parents observed their children making negative comments about their looks. For parents with self-conscious children, one in three believe their appearance likely is impacting the child’s self-esteem. Another one in five parents think their child’s low self-confidence is hindering them from taking part in certain activities.

Source: StudyFinds
https://studyfinds.org/kids-self-conscious-insecure-looks/

Teen Boys Insecure About Their Looks Far More Likely to Battle Depression as Adults Than Girls

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by StudyFinds.

Boys who are insecure about their looks as teenagers are almost three times more likely to suffer from severe depression as adults, a recent study warns.

The study by researchers at Erasmus University in The Netherlands tracked 4,000 teenagers for several years. Researchers found that young men are a staggering 285 percent more likely to have a severe depressive episode if they were unhappy with their bodies as teens.

Their female counterparts were also affected, but were 84 percent more likely to suffer the same problems if they had been insecure about their appearance. Well over half of teens, 61 percent, experience body dissatisfaction, putting them at risk of developing eating disorders, unhealthy behaviors, and poor mental health.

“It is possible that in the era of social media and increasing pressures on body ideals, male adolescents have also become sensitive to idealized body image pressures, which may translate into later depressive episodes,” the authors write.

The study is published in The Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.

Source: StudyFinds
https://www.studyfinds.org/teen-boys-insecure-body-image-depression-girls/

Facebook Knows Instagram is Harmful to Teen Girls

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on Parents.com.

A bombshell report in the Wall Street Journal shows that Facebook, which owns Instagram, is well aware of the teen mental health crisis—and they've been purposely playing it down.

The WSJ reports that for the past three years, Facebook employees who work in data science, marketing, and product development have been researching exactly how the app affects young people.

In a March 2020 slide presentation posted to Facebook's internal message board, researchers pointed out that 32 percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse. "Comparisons on Instagram can change how young women view and describe themselves," they noted.

Several of the many troubling conclusions that the WSJ uncovered from the internal documents:

• "We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls."
• "Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression. This reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups."
• More than 40 percent of Instagram users who reported feeling "unattractive" said the feeling began on the app.
• "Sharing or viewing filtered selfies in stories made people feel worse."

And yet, as the WSJ points out, Facebook, which is currently working on a version of Instagram for children under 13, has played down these negative effects. "The research that we've seen is that using social apps to connect with other people can have positive mental health benefits," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at a March 2021 congressional hearing.

Source: Parents.com
https://www.parents.com/news/facebook-knows-instagram-is-harmful-to-teen-girls-and-is-downplaying-the-problem-according-to-a-new-report/

Selfie-Image Problem: 9 in 10 Young Women Edit, Filter Photos Before Posting Them Online

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on Study Finds.

Long before social media appeared and changed the way people consume media, young women already had to deal with society’s unrealistic expectations of feminine beauty. Now, researchers from City, University of London say the age of social media is only making things worse.

Their report finds 90 percent of 175 surveyed young women and nonbinary people say they filter or edit all of their photos before posting them online. This includes evening out skin tone, whitening teeth, reshaping jaw or nose lines, and even shaving off some weight.

“A critique of perfection ran through the research like a bass track, with young people telling me that they feel overwhelmed by images that are ‘too perfect,'” Professor Rosalind Gill, from the university’s Gender and Sexualities Research Centre, says in a media release. “Women of color, disabled women, and gender-nonconforming folk told me they rarely see anyone like them in the media.”

Most young women in the survey said they’re frequently bombarded with tailored ads for beauty products and cosmetic surgeries. One 21-year-old participant adds, “once you look, you will never be allowed to forget.”

“With nearly 100 million photos posted every single day on Instagram alone, we have never been such a visually dominated society,” Prof. Gill explains. “Posting on social media can produce the intense pleasure of ‘getting likes’ and appreciative attention, but it is also a source of huge anxiety for most young women. I was struck by young women saying to me again and again: ‘I feel judged’.”

The findings appear in the report, Changing the perfect picture: Smartphones, social media, and appearance pressures.

Source: Study Finds
https://www.studyfinds.org/young-women-edit-photos-online/

Body Dissatisfaction at 14 Predicts Depressive Episodes at 18

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on HealthDay.

Body dissatisfaction at age 14 years is associated with depressive episodes at age 18 years, according to a study published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.

Anna Bornioli, Ph.D., from the University of the West of England in Bristol, and colleagues examined the influence of body dissatisfaction on the occurrence of later depressive episodes among 2,078 female and 1,675 male adolescents from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children cohort. Body dissatisfaction was assessed at age 14 years, and the association with the onset of depressive episodes at 18 years was examined, controlling for baseline depression.

The researchers found that body dissatisfaction predicted mild, moderate, and severe depressive episodes among girls (odds ratios [95 percent confidence intervals], 1.63 [1.31 to 2.04], 1.67 [1.28 to 2.18], and 1.84 [1.09 to 3.12], respectively). Body dissatisfaction predicted mild and severe depressive episodes among boys (odds ratios [95 percent confidence intervals], 1.50 [1.00 to 2.25] and 2.85 [1.18 to 6.87], respectively).

"These findings demonstrate that body dissatisfaction should be considered as a public health issue of pressing concern," the authors write. "Body dissatisfaction is highly prevalent among young people in the general population and has an increasing incidence; the findings indicate that reducing body dissatisfaction might be an effective strategy to reduce mental health issues."

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/body-dissatisfaction-at-14-predicts-depressive-episodes-at-18-2649205499.html

Need For Perfection, Negative Thoughts Keep Teens Awake At Night

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on StudyFinds.

The years between 12 and 20 are a period of self-discovery and self-doubt for the average teen. It’s hard not to compare oneself to others in high school, especially in today’s day and age of Instagram and selfies. Now, a new study conducted at Flinders University finds that teenagers experience insomnia most often due to persistent negative thoughts and a need to achieve perfection.

Making matters worse is the fact that a lack of sleep usually contributes to depression and anxiety symptoms, creating a vicious cycle of comparison, low self-esteem, and negativity.

Close to 400 adolescents between the ages of 14 and 20 took part in this online study, and researchers say their findings validate the theory that there is a link between constant negative thoughts and trouble falling asleep. Perfectionism was found to make this phenomenon even worse.

“Repetitive negative thinking is habit-forming and it can significantly contribute to making sleep difficult and causing depressed mood in teenagers, who already like to stay up late at night,” comments Professor Michael Gradisar, director of the Child and Adolescent Sleep Clinic at Flinders University, in a release. “This study supports the need to recognize repetitive negative thinking in preventing and treating sleep problems, along with individual differences in perfectionism and mood.”

The study was published in Sleep Health.

Source: StudyFinds
https://www.studyfinds.org/self-esteem-sleep-need-for-perfection-negative-thoughts-keep-teens-awake-at-night/

Social Media Often Leaves Young Women Feeling Badly About Their Bodies

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on StudyFinds.

In a recent study conducted at York University in Toronto, researchers say many young women feel badly about their bodies after logging on and viewing images of friends they perceive to be more attractive.

Images posted to social media are often far from reality, but this research is among the first to analyze how all of these unrealistic pictures impact young women’s views on their own bodies. Researchers monitored young women between 18 and 27 years old who liked or commented on photos of people they believe to be more attractive than themselves.

“The results showed that these young adult women felt more dissatisfied with their bodies,” says co-lead researchers Jennifer Mills, an associate psychology professor at York, in a university release. “They felt worse about their own appearance after looking at social media pages of someone that they perceived to be more attractive than them. Even if they felt bad about themselves before they came into the study, on average, they still felt worse after completing the task.”

The researchers distributed an online questionnaire to a group of 118 female undergraduate students from diverse ethnic backgrounds. Each student stated their age, ethnicity, years of post-secondary education, and whether or not English was their first language. Participants were also asked to rate how satisfied or dissatisfied they were with their appearance. All of this took place six weeks before the experimental phase of the study.

Then, for the experiment, participants were randomly assigned to one of two possible experimental groups. The first group was asked to view the profile of one peer of the same age on Facebook or Instagram they felt was more attractive than them. After at least five minutes, participants were asked to leave a comment of their choice.

Participants in the second group were asked to complete the same task as group one, except this time with a family member’s social media profile whom they did not think was more attractive than themselves. Subsequent data analysis revealed that interacting with these familial profiles had no impact on the subject’s self-body images.

The study was published in the journal Body Image.

Source: StudyFinds
https://www.studyfinds.org/social-media-often-leaves-young-women-feeling-badly-about-their-bodies/

What a New Study Reveals About Selfies and Teenage Body Image

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on Phys Org.

From Facebook and Twitter, to Instagram and Snapchat, it's no secret social media has become a common form of communication, but have you ever left your feeds feeling bad about yourself? If so, you're not alone, according to a new study conducted by Ilyssa Salomon, doctoral student, and Christia Spears Brown, professor of psychology, at the University of Kentucky.

"If you walk by any group of teenagers, you will notice that most of them are intently staring at their phone. Almost all of them, regardless of social class, race or gender, are on social media," Brown said. "Social media has become ubiquitous among teens, even prominent in the lives of teens too young to get their own account. The problem is that researchers are still unsure of the effects of social media use on teens' development."

On a quest for more concrete facts and figures, Salomon and Brown developed a cross-sectional study titled, "The Selfie Generation: Examining the Relationship Between Social Media Use and Early Adolescent Body Image." Together, they explored the potentially damaging effects of social media exposure among teenagers.

"We were concerned that social media use, with its emphasis on evaluating how people look, might be associated with how early adolescents feel about their own bodies. Previous research has shown that the majority of girls in middle school are unhappy with their bodies. And yet, we also know that they spend every day looking at highly sexualized, highly curated pictures of other people on social media," Brown said.

Visual platforms deliver the tools that allow teens to earn approval for their appearance and compare themselves to others. For some, especially girls, what starts as a fun way to document and share experiences can turn into an obsession.

In the survey, three popular types of social media were examined: Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

The focus group included 142 middle schoolers across four different schools. The sample was very ethnically diverse, with 45 percent white students, 22 percent Latino students, 19 percent black students and 13 percent multiracial students. They ranged in age from 11-14, with 94 percent of them being either 12 or 13.

Based on results from the study, nearly 80 percent of teens, by age 13, have at least one social media account. Most of them spend approximately five hours a week on their account; scrolling through feeds, posting pictures and interacting with other users.

Perhaps even more interesting, according to the study, teens who reported posting more pictures on social media had a heightened awareness of their appearance, which was related to feeling more negative about their body.

"Some teens may be more at risk than others for some negative effects of social media —s pecifically, for adolescents who are particularly focused on others for approval, and for adolescent girls who are already facing societal pressures to have an ideal body. Spending a lot of time on social media taking and posting selfies is associated with thinking about their bodies more frequently and thinking more negatively about their bodies," Brown said.

Teens today are often referred to as the "selfie generation." The act of taking and posting an image of yourself is an interesting phenomenon that zeroes in on physical appearance. That begs the question, does self-imaging boost confidence or lower self-esteem? The answer isn't exactly clear. However, Salomon and Brown said they discovered taking and posting selfies can be associated with negative outcomes, but not for all teenagers.

"It is really teens who are focused on others for approval and try to adapt their behavior to fit in, as well as adolescent girls, who seem to show the strongest links between social media and body image," Salomon explained. "Second, our results found that boys and girls in our sample did not differ in attitudes about their body. A lot of previous research has shown that girls have negative body image, but boys don't think much about their appearance. Our results suggest otherwise, that boys are also unhappy with their bodies."

In conclusion, those who were more invested in their selfies, spending more time choosing a photo or editing it, were more dissatisfied with their bodies.

Source: Phys Org
https://phys.org/news/2018-05-reveals-selfies-teenage-body-image.html