How do photo retouching apps affect impressionable teens on social media?
We think that retouching apps are huge contributors to many young teens' self esteem issues.
Many celebrities use retouch/Photoshop apps to enhance their pictures which they then post to various social media accounts with millions of impressionable followers. After teen girls see these photos, it creates an expectation of themselves. This can make girls feel pressured to alter their posts, even if they are unaware of the same tampering going on behind each celebrity's perfect image.
Facetune was the most popular paid app of 2017, and after asking students in our class, we discovered that 33% of students have face tuned a photo of themselves (even if they didn't post it anywhere). Many psychologists worry about the affect of retouching apps on teens, especially girls. The International Journal of Eating Disorders released a study in 2018 which found a connection between teens who manipulate their social media photos and those who suffer from eating disorders.
We sent out a survey to learn about how Facetune impacts teen girls in our community. We were shocked to discover that 40% of survey participants had downloaded a retouching app, while 25% had actually posted a photo on Instagram that had been face tuned or altered. It was disappointing to find that 50% of girls surveyed had felt pressured to edit or change their appearance because of social media standards.
In conclusion, we found it heartbreaking to see how many teenage girls feel that they aren't good enough as a result of social media's unrealistic standards. Many girls felt they had to Facetune their photos to live up to these impossible expectations. While on social media it is important to remember how easy it is to create a fake image. The less people who contribute to these standards by Facetuning, the less people feeling pressured by those standards.
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