With body image issues affecting women at double the rate of men, let’s consider the impact of social media from the perspective of women in a world where internet usage has reached an average of seven hours per day.
Consider this. Study after scientific study explores the negative effect on women of looking at beauty content. One study, for example, measured the effect on mood of women exposed to images of models versus images of ordinary consumer products. After viewing images of consumer products, five percent of women experience a decrease in mood. However, this number rises to fifty percent when women view thin, bikini-clad models; a tenfold increase. Similar studies exploring the effect of online video content reach similar conclusions.
Consider also this. Since World War Two, popular media has held up a decreasingly thinner body as the feminine ideal. The cultural icons of the 1940s and 1950s - the Mae Wests and the Marilyn Monroes - would be considered overweight by today’s standards.  In the West, the average woman is 5’4’’ tall and weighs 75 kilos, whereas the average model is 5’11’’ tall; weighing in at 53 kilos. Genetically, only 2% of women match this image. With 98% of women falling short, this is the largest discrepancy ever between women and the cultural ideal. And - as if genetic shortcomings weren’t enough to contend with - most of today’s models receive an electronic makeover. Most beauty content today is airbrushed or otherwise computer enhanced, with flaws magically disappearing, hips and waists slimmed, and breasts enlarged. Furthermore, what is true of the fashion world is increasingly true of peer-to-peer beauty content as more and more technologically astute filtering apps become available to the everyday internet user.
The online beauty landscape, therefore, is one that promotes an increasingly unattainable standard. For those trying to keep up, the world beyond this landscape has become one in which eating disorders have flourished, and body image issues are the norm.