Young people’s self esteem is getting damaged by the ever growing content that they see on social media that is filtered and digitally edited. This is before you look at the worrying trend of AI generated content. The stats don’t lie and in the UK, 9 out of every 10 girls with low body esteem put their health at risk by not seeing a doctor or by skipping meals. A survey conducted by the Royal Society for Public Health asked 14-24 year olds in the UK how social media platforms impacted their health and wellbeing. The survey results found that Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram were all linked to increased feelings of depression, anxiety, poor body image and loneliness.

More than two thirds (68%) of young people surveyed support social media highlighting when a photo has been manipulated. I have personally seen the lasting effects that eating disorders, anxiety, depression and loneliness can have on the lives of young people today. Prevention is better than a cure and I fear that society will not have the resources available to support the growing numbers of young people who are affected.

According to recent research carried out by Dove:

• 80% of girls said they had already applied a filter or used a retouching app to change the way they look in their photos by age 13
• 80% said they compared the way they looked with others on social media
• 77% tried to change or hide at least one body part/feature before posting a photo of themselves
• Girls who distort their photos are more likely to have low body-esteem (48%) compared to those that don’t distort their photos at all (28%)

One solution to this could be to amend the laws for social media platforms, that if content is filtered or edited then this has to be labelled on the post. Do I believe social media is the sole problem for the challenges in youth mental health? No. Does it exacerbate the problem? Absolutely. 

This solution will help protect our young people's mental health from low self esteem and negative body image. It will also provide some transparency around what is real vs. fake online.

The link to the details of the survey completed by the Royal Society for Public Health is available here https://www.rsph.org.uk/static/uploaded/d125b27c-0b62-41c5-a2c0155a8887cd01.pdf 

The link to Dove's research is  available here

Behind the selfie