Picture Perfect? Mental Health, Social Media, and Body Image

This post was co-authored by Heather Widdows, Ph.D., and Jessica Sutherland.

That social media is bad for adolescents’ mental health is well known, and a mounting body of work links “smartphone and social media use among teenagers” to “an increase in mental distress, self-harming behaviors, and suicidality.” ¹ But engaging in the virtual world in and of itself doesn’t seem to be harmful. Indeed, a recent large-scale study of 2.4 million people from 168 countries found that internet use was linked to higher well-being.²

For most people, “internet access and use were consistently associated with higher levels of life satisfaction, positive experiences, and social well-being.” ³ But not for all. The group that did not report higher well-being was young women. The study found:

“Young women, aged 15 to 24, reported lower levels of community well-being with increased internet use. This finding is consistent with previous research linking social media use to negative mental health outcomes, such as increased anxiety and depression. The study suggests that while the internet can offer numerous benefits, it may also have adverse effects on certain demographic groups, particularly in terms of community and social well-being.”⁴

For anyone who studies young girls’ social media use, this is not surprising, but the media tends to present online engagement as all being the same. We are told we should “worry about screen time.” ⁵ But should we? Or should we only worry about some types of screen time?

Some types of screen time are obviously harmful, such as young women being groomed, bullied, or encouraged to self-harm or starve themselves. Even regulating such obviously harmful sites is not easy, as regulating the online space is notoriously hard. For example, Ian Russell, the father of Molly (who took her own life in an act of self-harm while suffering the negative effects of online content), criticized the Online Safety Act for not going far enough.⁶

Regulating ideal images is even harder, as there is nothing wrong with any particular image considered in isolation; each one is simply the image of a beautiful young woman. But taken together, the diet of perfect faces and bodies that bombard young women is harmful. It dramatically shapes how they want to look and who they want to be and makes them feel like failures for not measuring up.

In our visual and virtual culture, who we are is becoming how we look,⁷ and young girls feel pressured to be perfect in the real and virtual worlds. In the 2024 Girls’ Attitudes Survey from Girl Guiding UK, 54 percent of 11-21-year-old girls surveyed said they “wish they looked like they do when they use filters on social media,” “36 percent feel pressure to use these filters,” and 46 percent “would feel safer online if there were more unedited images and content.”⁸ For these young women, the pressure to get their look right online is overwhelming.

Social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat are primarily visual platforms, meaning that what matters is the image. The image we present is connected to our identity, to who we think we are, such that having followers and likes on social media is not something we can take or leave. While no one has to have a TikTok or Instagram account, not to have one is to exclude oneself from dominant and necessary communities and peer groups.

Opting out is almost impossible for young people today, as “engagement with media devices in people’s everyday lives is not optional: rather it is a necessary component of producing a recognized self.” ^9. In addition to excluding yourself from key communities, not engaging is failing to create your online self.

Social media looks like it’s fun and inclusive—like everyone can join the party; indeed, everyone has to join the party to be included, given just how much day-to-day info (such as invites to events, etc.) is now only available on social media. But while everyone can post equally on Instagram and TikTok, only certain posts do well; you have to have the right kind of face and body to be liked and get followers, as well as a huge amount of luck.

Posting on social media turns out to be hard work; no one posts a quick snap. Creating selfies involves numerous stages. Real-world modification includes putting on makeup for the camera (gold noses and contouring); posing to thin waists and accentuate curves and to create a “snatched jaw”; and purchasing a ring light (less than £20). Virtual modification includes filters to change the shade or tone of pictures; filters to enhance certain features (widen and whiten eyes, whiten teeth, remove blemishes and wrinkles); apps to change face shape and body shape; apps to transform faces, such as Bold Glamour and YouCam Makeup.

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Not all selfies are this elaborate, but in the decade between 2006 and 2016, the average woman’s makeup routine went from eight to 28 steps, and the K-beauty “10-step skin-care routine” is sweeping the globe. Instagram offers filters automatically, and modifying images is commonplace; recent research shows that 85 percent of young women in the UK “edit their photos using tools outside the platform’s own tools.” ¹⁰

Even if we have the right body and post the right image, we will likely still be anxious, worried, and feel like we are not good enough. Social comparison is consistently shown to be one of the processes driving body dissatisfaction, but comparison is virtually all we do on Instagram and TikTok. In the real world, social comparison is contained—your peer comparison group is your class at school or the people you work with—on social media, the peer group of relevant comparators is literally everyone posting a selfie. The fact that peer groups online are far bigger than they are offline and that peer comparison on social media leads to body dissatisfaction is supported by psychological research.^11,12

The bottom line is that even if we have the perfect image, we can never feel good enough on social media; there are always more likes and followers we can have, and we know—we always know—that we don’t look like our selfies. A selfie is a curated self, not a real self, and however effortless it might look, it is always, always an effort. Why are we surprised that young women’s mental health is suffering in the face of such extraordinary pressure to be picture perfect?

About the authors:

Heather Widdows is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick.

Jessica Sutherland is a Research Fellow at the University of Warwick.