The Social Body

Scrolling through social media, it's easy to become lost in comparisons. Envy over this model's looks, that influencer's lifestyle, his wit and their bank account. But as we continue to spend more time on our phones and are exposed to this freely available content, I'm wondering what the cost of this is. In particular, questioning how our reliance on social media, and the content we are exposed to, might be affecting our perception of body image? Social comparison is highly magnified online. This is a sociological phenomenon where we evaluate our own abilities and self in relation to others. In the age of social media, this is only amplified and there is growing evidence of the negative association between greater social media use, low self-esteem and body image concerns.    

In some ways, our online social media driven world doesn't feel that different from the pre-digital era. Physical beauty has long been lauded and valued in women. Instagram provides a platform that both exploits our physical attractiveness and allows us to exploit our physical attractiveness as a means of generating success. This success is driven by following and likes. Now a commodity, our bodies are promoted for online consumption and advertising. We are the brand that is being sold. But this system is built on external validation and our sense of self is quickly becoming based on how others see us. To in some ways battle this and reduce pressure to perform, Instagram has suggested publicly removing likes so that we alone can see how our content is performing, but surely the emotional impact of not achieving engagement goals will continue. We have become Pavlov's dogs. 

I joined social media relatively late. I remember very clearly being praised by a close school friend for not having created a Facebook account and how very different this made me from my peers. Perhaps it was this very awareness of variance that prompted me to join the next year just before my sixteenth birthday, much to the disappointment of my friend. By being different, I was worried about missing out, despite there being, at the time, not much to miss out on - definitely not the scintillating status' and horribly edited sepia Photo Booth images. Ten years on, social media and the content we post online has changed drastically. 

Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest all have age restrictions of 12+, but there are no real age checks. If you can do basic maths to allocate a new birthdate for yourself, you're in. I have friends my own age who have just celebrated their 30th Facebook birthdays having McLovin-ed their way onto the site. Their maths may not have been up to par. Astoundingly, the photo editor Facetune's minimum age is just five years old. The app allows you to not only correct photographic aesthetics such as lighting and background in pictures, but also your own aesthetics by allowing users to alter their appearance. Need to whiten your teeth? Remove blemishes? Adjust your face shape, height, waist? Facetune has you covered from a young impressionable age and much of the content people are putting out on social media sites today is highly edited. The problem with this is a distortion of reality, expectation and in turn comparison. 

In August 2020, a heavily edited image of Khloe Kardashian trended worldwide. Khloe looked completely different from her other Instagram images and it was widely contested that this was the result of plastic surgery. However, reality tv detectives unearthed an original still of Khloe filming in the same outfit and changes made in the Instagram image were absolute. Facetune, filters and Photoshop had obviously been employed to manipulate the photo to fit an unrealistic perfection. Khloe was both condemned and praised by fans, but although in comments she joked about her #NEWFACE, no acknowledgment was made that she modifies her photographs. Although in this case, it is clear when content is obviously edited as we have proof, sometimes it isn't. In the UK, a proposed Digitally Altered Body Images Bill has been put forward. If passed, this bill will require advertisers, broadcasters and publishers to display a logo on images that have been digitally altered. Signposting editing can only be a good thing, especially considering the rise in Snapchat and other forms of social media dysmorphia.

Earlier this month, Khloe made news again when an unedited photograph was posted online without her consent. In response, Khloe movingly lamented the pressures of fulfilling media beauty standards and the judgement she has faced over the years. What could have been a powerful statement of body acceptance and authenticity, however has fallen somewhat short. The unedited image has been scrubbed off the interwebs at an unparalleled speed (perhaps her team might next tackle child pornography) and it is clear that these crushing beauty standards have won again. 

Instagram and other social media sites work on an algorithm of exposure. Popular posts that have high engagement will be shown to you far more readily than those that aren't performing well. It is therefore reasonable to suggest that those influencers with the current ideal 'Insta-baddie' body will perform better than those influencers not in this minority. We are therefore more likely to view these bodies more frequently on our feeds.  

However, this increased exposure has a worrying impact. The mere exposure effect, otherwise known as the familiarity principle, is a psychological phenomenon where people develop preferences as a direct result of familiarity. Therefore in this instance, if we are increasingly exposed to a certain body type, it increases the likelihood of us assuming that is the model for bodily perfection and indeed the norm. The vast majority of us will consequently not qualify. An online equivalent I can think of is porn. Due to the proliferation of free online porn, erectile disfunction in 18-25 year old males, has gone up by 1000%. A large reason for this is that real women's bodies do not look like they do in porn and the expectation that they will, is raising (or not in this case) issues. Porn performers bodies and their reactions to boot, are regarded as the norm, thus rendering 'normal' women's bodies and reactions abhorrent. Like with Instagram, this unattainable standard of perfection becomes the norm, making the true norm subaltern. 

Recently Tiktok came under fire when it was revealed their policies allow for the removal and suppression of content from body positive, disabled, queer and minority creators over worries they might become vulnerable to bullying or harassment. Instead of shutting down abuse and abusers, this instead silences a victim. By suppressing content, it falsely shows viewers that there is something wrong with it. Looking at this in terms of body confidence: if all body types aren't displayed and some are hidden from view, how will people begin to view their own bodies if they can't see themselves depicted online? Preemptive action like this only stands to streamline diverse and divisive content, made so by lack of visibility, and alienate audiences. 

We must remember that social media is an echo chamber. In the same way that we need to be looking for diversity of opinion, to ensure exposure to counterarguments and a reduction in misinformation, we also need to be looking for the same with images. At the end of the day, social media is driven by advertising and engagement. The ideal is sold as reality and although you'll see influencers are making moves to expose the reality behind their Instagram images, this is a trend. Glamour will always sell better. As the customer, we need to be increasingly aware of the sociological impact of our and future generations online engagement.