Social media use can lead to body image issues, according to new research (Pic: Getty Creative)
Cutting down on social media makes teens and young adults feel better about their weight and appearance, according to a new study.
Halving the amount of time young people spend on social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat, even for just a few weeks, can have a significant impact on self-esteem, researchers found.
Poor body image has been linked to eating disorders, self-harm and other damaging behaviors, problems that are widely seen as being linked to social media use.
But while numerous studies have found a correlation between poor body image and social media, it is often unclear which way round it works: do those with body image issues spend more time on social media, or does spending more time on social media use lead to more body image issues?
The latest study, published by the American Psychological Association, suggests it may be the latter, and that even a brief social media holiday can make a difference.
“Adolescence is a vulnerable period for the development of body image issues, eating disorders and mental illness,” said Gary Goldfield, of Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute and lead author of the report.
“Youth are spending, on average, between six to eight hours per day on screens, much of it on social media.
“Social media can expose users to hundreds or even thousands of images and photos every day, including those of celebrities and fashion or fitness models, which we know leads to an internalization of beauty ideals that are unattainable for almost everyone, resulting in greater dissatisfaction with body weight and shape.”
Along with colleagues at McGill and Carleton universities, Goldfield recruited 220 students, aged 17 to 25, for the study. Three quarters were female and to qualify participants had to be regular social media users (two hours or more a day) and show symptoms of anxiety or depression.
The students were asked to respond to a series of statements at the start of the experiment, such as “I’m pretty happy about the way I look” and “I am satisfied with my weight”, on a scale of one to five.
After a week of normal social media use, half the participants were then asked to reduce the time they spent on social media to no more than 60 minutes a day for the next three weeks, before responding to the statements again.
Social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr were tracked for the study, published in the APA's journal Psychology of Popular Media. Messaging, streaming or video calling platforms, such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, FaceTime and YouTube, were not included and their use was not restricted for the study.
Those who were asked to restrict their social media use ended up reducing it to an average of 78 minutes a day, compared with 188 minutes a day for the other half of the group.
And students who reduced their social media use had a significant improvement in how they perceived both their overall appearance and their body weight, compared to those who carried on as normal.
“Our brief, four-week intervention using screentime trackers showed that reducing social media use yielded significant improvements in appearance and weight esteem in distressed youth with heavy social media use,” said Goldfield.
“Reducing social media use is a feasible method of producing a short-term positive effect on body image among a vulnerable population of users and should be evaluated as a potential component in the treatment of body-image-related disturbances.”
The researchers now plan to conduct a larger study to see if a reduction in social media use can be maintained for longer periods and whether this leads to even greater psychological benefits.
