“If appearance-ideal video content is perceived as unedited and enhanced when it in reality is, then users may be more likely to engage in negative social comparisons and internalise the appearance ideals,” Ms Gurtala says. While the exact nature of any enhancements applied to the content in the study was unknown, participants perceived the video content they viewed to be less edited and enhanced than the images and were less satisfied with their own appearance by comparison.
“That was just in a lab-based setting, so it’ll be interesting to measure the impact of exposure over the long-term and whether that has some cumulative effect.” Emergence of editing and enhancementsĪppearance ideals promoted through social media are often enhanced and edited using manipulation techniques like hyper-realistic face and body filters that are becoming harder to detect, particularly with video. “The total exposure time was only like a minute and a half, and we found that was enough to have harmful impacts,” says Dr Fardouly. In other words, they compared their own bodies to the women in the appearance-ideal content, judging themselves as less attractive, negatively impacting their mood and increasing body dissatisfaction. The research also found participants made the same amount of upward appearance comparisons when they viewed ideal content in images or video. Read more: Instagram can make teens feel bad about their body, but parents can help. “We found that appearance-ideal short-form video content on social media, regardless of the medium, can have adverse effects on appearance satisfaction, negative mood, and self-objectification among participants,” says Jade Gurtala, an honours graduate in psychology and lead author of the study. They then surveyed the participants on several body image measures, using appearance-neutral content – content without people – for comparison.
Negative impacts on body imageįor the study, the researchers showed 211 women aged 17 to 28 ten images or videos selected from the Instagram and TikTok accounts of young female social media influencers that reflected societal appearance ideals. “Social media isn’t the only place where these appearance ideals are promoted, but there is a lot more opportunity to internalise them through the platforms,” Dr Fardouly says. “We know this starts early, with girls as young as six reporting unhappiness with their bodies, desires to look thinner, and even dieting to lose weight.”Īppearance dissatisfaction, frequently reported among young women, is associated with adverse mental health outcomes, including depression, and is a risk factor for some clinical eating disorders. “Appearance-ideal content can pressure women to look a certain way that is unrealistic or completely unattainable,” says Dr Jasmine Fardouly, senior author of the study from the School of Psychology at UNSW Science. TikTok, which exclusively utilises short-form video content, can be an especially appearance-focused environment, with many viral trends like dance challenges reflecting widely held societal conceptions of beauty. While these standards are not necessarily new, social media is an environment where users tend to view and show the most attractive versions of themselves and others.
#BODY TIK TOK DANCE FULL#
With few exceptions, this is a narrow representation of physical appearance and beauty, for example, long legs, toned stomachs, large eyes, full lips, and blemish-free skin. Research published recently in the Journal Body Image suggests that just a little exposure to short-form social media videos reflecting unattainable appearance standards – known as appearance-ideal content – is enough to have a negative impact on body image.Īppearance ideals are what our culture tells us about how we should aspire to look. TikTok videos that reflect unrealistic depictions of physical appearance may harm how young women think and feel about their bodies – and the impacts may be worse if the content is perceived as unedited and natural.
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