Social media stresses vanity over all else, promotes eating disorders
(STUDY FINDS) -- ADELAIDE, Australia — As today’s adolescents and teens habitually log onto social media platforms, they are constantly being bombarded with the message that looks, beauty, and the appearance of a perfect life and body are essentially the only factors that really matter in life. Consequently, the more an adolescent uses social media, the more likely they are to develop an eating disorder and poor body image.
That’s the finding from a new study conducted in Australia that is stressing the need for more intervention methods to remind young people that despite what they may encounter online, there is more to one’s self-worth than their amount of followers or body fat percentage.
According to the research team, social media platforms that focus heavily on image sharing, such as Instagram and Snapchat, are both the most popular among adolescents and also the most harmful from a psychological perspective. Despite the fact that this generation of adolescents have quite literally grown up with the internet, and are more smartphone savvy than any other group before, that doesn’t mean they are any less influenced by the near-sighted, vain messages that are constantly being purveyed online.
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