The content on social media has taken such a drastic shift in its nature within the past decade. Instagram, for example, went from people posting pictures of their lunch layout, usually accompanied by a horrifically grainy filter that Instagram offers in-app, to millions of very carefully orchestrated images that portray the perfect person, with the perfect hair, perfect clothes, perfect body, in a perfectly candid pose with a perfect background. These pictures, of course, are seldom taken straight from the camera roll and uploaded to Instagram; they go through tedious amounts of editing beforehand, but tend to be so subtle that the average user cannot decipher where the editing has taken place.
Photo manipulation is manifestly not something new and has been around for decades; however, the difference between then and now is accessibility. No longer is it necessary for someone to know how to navigate the confusing Adobe Photoshop interface to be able to get the desired results. Instead, the exponential rise of popularity in face and body editing applications have made it possible to effortlessly achieve these results. With their clean and easy-to-use interfaces, users are able to cinch their waist, smooth their skin, brighten their eyes, and even elongate their legs with just a few swipes and button presses. This is not just limited to photos anymore; body and face manipulation are now offered for videos as well through certain applications. Just searching terms like “face editing” and “body editor” on the Apple App Store yields thousands of results, both paid and free. One of these editing apps, Facetune, was the most popular paid app in the Apple App Store in 2017 and was downloaded more than 20 million times in 2018.
While some may think that face and body editing are harmless fun that are just used for an online persona, the prevalence of editing has created new beauty standards that are simply unrealistic, as even these picture-perfect Instagram models are editing their features to fit the emerging standards and as a result, encourages the mainstream user to also explore these applications to keep up with new beauty demands. You now have influencers pushing out certain beauty products to their audience, promising to achieve a flawless finish that even the influencer themselves cannot attain; in turn, the audience, not realizing that even the influencer themselves cannot achieve these standards without editing, shells out money to buy products that will never give them that perfection, and will then develop new body dysmorphia issues and insecurities.
A 2021 quantitative analysis explores the widespread dysmorphia caused by the use of filters and photo manipulation, referring to coined terms such as “Snapchat dysmorphia” and “digitized dysmorphia” to explain this phenomenon. Researchers used 20 participants, 10 male and 10 female who were unfamiliar with Facetune, and introduced them to the app. They gave the participants 1 week to use the app to edit their selfies and by assessing through quantitative means, the study concluded that “both male and female participants experienced increased consideration of cosmetic surgery on the Acceptance of Cosmetic Surgery Scale” (Parsa et al., 2021). There is almost no doubt about the detrimental effects on body image that these apps present; by giving the user the power to virtually alter anything about their appearance, the user grows more obsessed with nitpicking every flaw that would not be noticed by anyone else. Subtle alterations like blemish removal and skin smoothing soon become drastic changes that makes the person unrecognizable when comparing their online image to their real life one.
Below are some listed interesting articles that futher explore the relationship between social media, photo editing apps, and body image.
FaceTune is conquering Instagram – but does it take airbrushing too far?
Body Editing Apps: The Trend Fuelling Body Image Issues
Quantitative Analysis of Enhanced Selfies in a Young Adult Population
Facetune and the internet’s endless pursuit of physical perfection
References
Parsa, K. M., Talati, I. A., Wang, H., Chu, E., Talakoub, L., & Reilly, M. J. (2021). Quantitative Analysis of Enhanced Selfies in a Young Adult Population. Facial Plastic Surgery, 10.1055/s-0041-1726313
I was thinking about your post as I composed one about avatars, and I felt there was a connection but was unable to articulate it last night. When I look at the Facetune example you shared, the “tuned” face is how I imagine personalized avatars will evolve and I wonder how those representations of ourselves affect our identity and conceptions of beauty. Will they contribute to dysmorphia or help mitigate it? Psychologically speaking, how is a filtered picture different from an avatar? I’m not sure. Perhaps avatars tend to still be too cartoony to have the same impact, but as they become more prevalent, more refined creeping closer and closer to the “uncanny valley” I suspect the impact on body-image will continue to expand, and it will become increasingly important to teach (and learn) explicitly about how these representations of self in digital spaces impact and change our conceptions of our ‘real’ self. As noted by Olivia and Sarah, digital literacy is increasingly important and will have to adapt as quickly as the technology itself.
Hi Tasneem, thanks for the excellent article. We’re seeing a negative feedback loop now where people are modifying their physical bodies to match the unrealistic ones they see on social media. Digital body editing that encourages dysmorphia is feeding back into perceptions of how people want their real bodies to appear. Beauty algorithms tend to converge on a uniform Euro-centric ideal which has been studied and calculated with precision, for example, the top of the nose to the centre of the lips should be 1.6 times the distance from the centre of the lips to the chin and so on, this leads to cookie-cutter effect and gives a new definition to the “the quantified self”. https://www.medisculpt.co.za/golden-ratio-beautiful-face/. Unfortunately, new technology adoption is quickest among those least mature enough to navigate its ethical quandaries.
Hi Tasnam,
Your post made me think of the below deep fake video that Olivia referenced in her reply.
https://youtu.be/F4G6GNFz0O8
A fascinating technology that, unfortunately, can be used for spreading misinformation.
Hi Tasneem, Your post is a great example of why educators need to talk with their learners about digital literacy and being able to critically analyze information found online. There is a lot of manipulation happening online (i.e., filters, deep fake videos, antagonizing memes meant to divide populations etc.). The pandemic has really shown how quickly misinformation can spread, how detrimental it is to our societies, and the fact that learners of all ages can fall victim to these manipulations. At first I wasn’t sure how your post related to education but now I see a very important connection so thanks for your though provoking post.
Hi Olivia, just wanted to branch off of your point for a moment. Not only do young learners have to develop a sense of digital literacy, but adults also have to. Most adults, like my parents and coworkers) did not grow up with this type of media around them. A lot of times, they forward me articles and videos that spread misinformation. I talked with one of our corporate trainers at work and she is planning a workshop around digital literacy for everyone in our organization. A purpose of this is most people in the organization have children and a lot of our work is done online, so she wanted everyone able to be more aware and pass this important skill along.
Sarah – your comment to adults needing to be taught digital literacy is spot on. The number of adults who have been caught in scams by texts or emails is concerning. I have friends who have a relative that was scammed $3000 and had no idea that he had been scammed. My interest in corporate training design. Kudos to your company looking into this to support staff who in turn can educate their parents etc.