A closer look at appearance and social media: Measuring activity, self-presentation, and social comparison and their associations with emotional adjustment.

Abstract

Social media use links with 2 major concerns of adolescents, namely, appearance and comparing favorably with others. Founded on theory, our purpose was to develop a reliable and valid measure of appearance preoccupation online, the Social Media Appearance Preoccupation Scale (SMAPS). In Study 1 (N ϭ 283 Grade 9 -12 students), Australian adolescents completed surveys containing 21 SMAPS items. After psychometric analyses, 18 retained items loaded highly on factors tapping (a) online self-presentation, (b) appearance-related activity online, or (c) appearance comparison. The items loading on each factor had high interitem correlations, and girls had higher SMAPS scores than boys. In Study 2 (N ϭ 327 Australian university students Ͻ26 years), the SMAPS was confirmed and validated with a range of measures of social media use, emotional adjustment, appearance concerns, and social behaviors. Factor loadings were invariant by gender, SMAPS subscale scores had very small correlations with age, and incremental validity was tested and supported. Additionally, SMAPS subscale scores interacted with general social media use, adding to the explanation of appearance anxiety. The SMAPS will be a useful resource for the study of appearance-related social media use and interactions with friends and others online.

Achieving the ideal-self while harming my relationship: Examining associations between self-discrepancy, instagram photo manipulation, and romantic relationship outcomes.

“…A significant amount of research has yielded significant associations related to SNS usage and body image-related variables (see, e.g., Holland & Tiggemann, 2016; Veldhuis et al, 2020). One explanation for these findings is that visual SNSs in particular, such as Instagram, provide greater opportunities to asses one’s body image via comparisons to other users’ online body displays (Clayton et al, 2017; Festinger, 1954; Frampton & Fox, 2018; Hendrickse et al, 2017; Knobloch-Westerwick, 2015; Perloff, 2014; Zimmer-Gembeck et al, 2021). The target comparison on these SNSs is most frequently users’ friends (i.e., peers) and acquaintances rather than media ideals, which may further explain why findings related to body image and SNSs are observed more consistently than studies that examine TV or magazine ideals (see Catalyst model proposed by Ferguson et al, 2011, p. 3; McLean et al, 2015; Tiggemann & Slater, 2013).…”

The Perfect Storm: A Developmental–Sociocultural Framework for the Role of Social Media in Adolescent Girls’ Body Image Concerns and Mental Health

“…Notably, highly visual SM-such as Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, Tik Tok, and Facebook-are especially common among adolescent girls (Anderson & Jiang, 2018). An emerging body of work has documented associations between adolescents' use of SM and heightened body image concerns (e.g., de Vries et al, 2016;Fardouly et al, 2020;Marengo et al, 2018;Rodgers et al, 2020), and has found higher levels of SM-related appearance and body image concerns among girls compared to boys (e.g., Fardouly et al, 2020;Nesi et al, in press;Rodgers et al, 2020;Zimmer-Gembeck et al, 2021). Yet this work is often strikingly absent from prevailing atheoretical and oversimplified "screen time" debates (see Granic et al, 2020).…”

The Perfect Storm: A Developmental–Sociocultural Framework for the Role of Social Media in Adolescent Girls’ Body Image Concerns and Mental Health

“…Adolescents view highly edited images of peers, celebrities, and “influencers.” These images and videos often include thin and toned women, promoting exercise and healthy eating (Tiggemann & Zaccardo, 2018 ), or ultra-thin, sexually suggestive images of women encouraging weight loss (Ghaznavi & Taylor, 2015 ). An emerging body of work has documented associations between adolescents’ use of SM and heightened body image concerns (e.g., de Vries et al, 2016 ; Marengo et al, 2018 ; Rodgers et al, 2020 ) and has found higher levels of SM-related appearance concerns among girls compared to boys (e.g., Choukas-Bradley et al, 2020 ; Nesi et al, 2021 ; Rodgers et al, 2020 ; Zimmer-Gembeck et al, 2021 ). Yet this work is often absent from prevailing debates about the potential harms of social media, which frequently reference oversimplified measures of “screen time” (see Granic et al, 2020 ) and do not take into account the unique appearance-related SM experiences of many adolescent girls.…”