Social media study: Lockdown increases pressure on young people

We talk about diversity, fight against body shaming and an unrealistic ideal of beauty and yet unfortunately we act differently, as the current study by the University of London shows. While we know we are not, and do not need to be, perfect and that beauty has many faces, we strive for perfection when it comes to our social media image. According to the study, 90 percent of 18-30 year olds use -Year olds filter to change their appearance when posting their picture on social networks. That means nine out of ten retouch their own images with filters and apps. However, one has to say that the young people don't just do it for fun, according to the results of the study, but because "young women on social media feel like they're being watched all the time." And this pressure and this fear is being increased by the pandemic. The fact that the pandemic and the lockdown with all the restrictions in the private sphere will affect our psyche and that we can ultimately only guess what this means for our children or unstable people was something we knew certainly clear to everyone. Still, the results of the study are depressing.

Less real: the supremacy of the virtual in lockdown

The survey was conducted in June 2020, which was towards the end of the lockdown in Great Britain, i.e. at a time when many people had already been closed for ten weeks had to stay home. During this time, many young women spent significantly more time in social networks due to the isolation - with clear consequences for their own body image, as the study shows.

Also read: There is more to come! Body positivity on social media

Virtual contacts as sometimes the only contact with the outside world: So it is not surprising that the time participants spent on social media was extremely high. While 13 percent said they spend less than two hours a day on social media, 67 percent spent between two and six hours a day, and 20 percent even more than six hours a day online. Instagram was the most popular social network with almost 90 percent of registrations.

Video: Here are the results of another study on body positivity

Pressure on your own body perception: facts & Figures

The increasing focus on social networks has left its mark. Anyone who constantly sees the perfect, beautiful life of others feels compelled to have to be just as perfect. Especially since our own normality no longer exists in the times of the pandemic. We lack, so to speak, the grounding through real encounters and interpersonal contacts.

Filters distort reality

Unfortunately, editing apps and filters like Facetune help perpetuate unrealistic notions of beauty and a stereotypical ideal on social media. Ideas that young women can feel overwhelmed by. In addition, many respondents stated that they constantly felt controlled by their peers. For example, more than 95 percent responded to the question, "Do you think people feel pressured about their body image?" with "Yes". Other frightening results: More than 90 percent of those questioned want to look attractive and compare their appearance with others. They feel pressured to keep up and also present a perfect self and life on social media (70%). And they feel the pressure to collect positive comments, likes, or shares for their pictures (more than 75%). changing the jawline or the shape of the nose, or cheating yourself slimmer. Half of those surveyed use a filter (including comic book filters) on every other picture or more, and use YouTube tutorials to edit their selfies. More than 75 percent of young women said they never felt like the pictures they see , which about 60 percent often found depressing. And a full 100 percent of those surveyed said that our society attaches great importance to appearance.Prof. Rosalind Gill, from the Gender and Sexualities Research Center at the City University of London, explains: "With almost 100 million photos posted every day on Instagram alone, we've never been such a picture-dominated society. Posting content on social media can There's intense pleasure in getting 'likes' and appreciative attention, but it's also a source of great anxiety for most young women."

The perfidy: Although young women bow to the pressure of the ideal of beauty in social networks and also want to look more beautiful and perfect, they also feel the pressure to be authentic and not "fake".

Also read: Getting ready: How best to respond to stupid comments

Also read: Stop body shaming: Be happy instead of perfect!

Little diversity on social media

In addition to experiences during lockdown and perspectives on the subject of body positivity, the study also dealt with topics such as the Black Lives Matter movement. And here there is "a persistent sense of anger among young women" because they perceive social media portrayal as "too white", "too heterosexual" and too focused on a stereotypical notion of beauty.Prof. Rosalind Gill explains: "Young women feel overwhelmed by images that are 'too perfect'. Women of colour, women with disabilities and gender atypical people claim they rarely see someone like them in the media." And of course there are great initiatives, bloggers and bloggers who work for exactly this, for more diversity and tolerance, that should not be forgotten here. However, there is still a lot to do and the supremacy of the perfect images is omnipresent. And especially for young or insecure people it is not easy to deal with it every day.

Also read: Skinny shaming is also body shaming

Lockdown acts like a magnifying glass on existing problems

The dilemma that the study illustrates is that we women unfortunately tend to see ourselves extremely self-critically, as a result of which we often have impaired self-esteem and more seeing our apparent flaws instead of our real strength and beauty. It is more than sad that this development is now intensifying in times of lockdown. Even if the results of the study are generally valid, they show that the pandemic is acting like a magnifying glass on existing problems.

More on this: Self-esteem: Where do the doubts about ourselves come from?

The isolation of the lockdown, distance learning, rules and bans, financial worries and, last but not least, the fear and grief due to corona diseases: all of this naturally has a strong impact on the psyche. At the same time, we are even more thrown back on ourselves, have hardly any social contacts and activities and are therefore increasingly focusing on virtual contacts in social networks. This may be a pragmatic necessity for digital natives, homeschooling instead of face-to-face classes, zoom meetings with friends instead of real get-togethers, likes on Instagram instead of kind words face to face. Shifting life online will seem less fanciful to them than it did to the older generation. Nevertheless, as the survey shows, this shift of life online creates even more pressure, uncertainty and fear among young people. Let's hope that the negative effects will lessen again in a better time when we go out and To meet and be close to people without suspicion and rules.

Link tips on the topic of healthy use of the Internet and social media:

-> You can also find tips on how parents can teach their children how to use social media channels in a safe, healthy and therefore critical manner here at "LOOK! What your child does with media." (An initiative of the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, Das Erste and ZDF as well as the AOK.)-> Parents can also find useful information on this page: klicksafe.de (The EU initiative klicksafe is politically and economically independent. In Germany it is implemented by the media authorities in Rhineland-Palatinate and NRW.)NEWSLETTERSGofeminin processes personal data in order to enable personalized promotional communications based on your preferences. You can find more information on this and your rights in relation to your personal data in our data protection declaration. News, tips and trends... we have many exciting topics for you!