Have you ever had the experience of comparing your appearance while on social media? If so, you probably have a high level of social media usage (SMU).
High SMU is one of the activities of using social media excessively. An example of high social media usage is high screen time.
High levels of social media use are usually experienced by youth, because they use social media as a part of their lives.
High levels of social media use can be potentially negative in comparison to others and leading to low levels of confidence in appearance, especially for youth who are vulnerable to mental health issues that often arise (Thai et al., 2023).
In fact, the study of social media has grown rapidly in popularity and is examining its possible mental health effects (Karim et al., 2020).
Such as, low self esteem, anxiety, depression, & etc. There are several factors that lead to low confidence in appearance, namely high screen time, new trends, and appearance standards on social media. Therefore, we need to reduce social media usage (SMU) to improve appearances.
Excessive use of social media can potentially lead to mental health problems such as dissatisfaction with appearance in youth.
For example, they spend a lot of time seeing the beauty standard that comes up in their social media timeline and facing many challenges of trying to understand and come to terms with the online word (Reategui and Palmer, 2017).
So, the best way we can improve our appearance confidence is by taking the following steps. First, limit your use of social media by using the screen time limiter feature.
Second, reduce your daily social media activities. Third, always remember that trends on social media change frequently.
Last but not least, be yourself, you don’t need to follow the standard appearance on social media. These following steps are supported by research on reducing social media.
It is significant that reducing social media usage is an effective way to improve confidence in appearance.
In conclusion, it can be concluded that high social media usage can affect the level of confidence in appearance.
By understanding the topic of high social media use affecting appearance confidence, we can understand that it has a major negative effect in the long run, especially for adolescents who are vulnerable to mental health disorders.
Thus, it is important for us to be aware that excessive social media use can affect our appearance and confidence levels on social media.
Author: Fico Ferristian
Psychology Student, Indonesian University of Education
Editor: Salwa Alifah Yusrina
Bahasa: Rahmat Al Kafi
References
Karim, F., Oyewande, A. A., Abdalla, L. F., Ehsanullah, R. C., & Khan, S. (2020). Social media use and its connection to mental health: a systematic review. Cureus, 12(6).
Thai, H., Davis, C. G., Mahboob, W., Perry, S., Adams, A., & Goldfield, G. S. (2023). Reducing social media use improves appearance and weight esteem in youth with emotional distress. Psychology of Popular Media. https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000460dvv
Reategui, A. S. L., & Palmer, R. (2017). Unfiltered: The effect of media on body image dissatisfaction. International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, 7(6), 367-372.
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