Adolescent Girls’ Social Media Use, Body Image, and Mental Health: Proposing a Developmental–Sociocultural Framework

• In Event: New Advances in the Study of Adolescents’ Social Media Use: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives

Abstract

Highly visual social media (HVSM) use is very common among adolescent girls. While prior work has identified body image concerns as a possible consequence of HVSM, the field has lacked a unifying theoretical framework for understanding how heightened body image concerns serve as a mechanism underlying associations between social media use and mental health among adolescent girls. In this talk, we provide an organizing framework for future research on adolescent girls’ HVSM use and its role in body image concerns and mental health. Figure 1 shows our integrative developmental-sociocultural framework. In this talk, we explain each piece of this model and provide empirical support for its tenets.

We will discuss the role of HVSM in promoting girls’ body image concerns, and in turn, depressive symptoms and disordered eating. We integrate multiple theoretical perspectives to propose that the features of social media intersect with (1) features of the developmental period of adolescence (e.g., importance of peer relationships and social status), and (2) sociocultural gender socialization processes (e.g., emphasis on girls and women’s physical appearance), to create the “perfect storm” for increasing adolescent girls’ focus on physical appearance. From the developmental literature, we discuss how the biopsychosocial changes associated with adolescent development lead to declines in body esteem and an increased focus on peers, heightened self-consciousness, and concerns about one’s self-image. From the social psychology literature and gender-related theories, we discuss objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997), the tripartite influence model (Thompson et al., 1999), and social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954), and how these theories explain adolescent girls’ heightened focus on physical appearance and associated body image concerns. Finally, we address the transformation framework of adolescents’ social media use, and how specific features of social media (e.g., visualness, “24/7” availability, publicness, quantifiable feedback) may increase girls’ focus on physical appearance. Table 1 provides an overview of how the specific features of social media may affect adolescent girls’ body image, adapted from the transformation framework (Nesi et al., 2018).

More specifically, we will discuss two key sets of mechanisms through which social media may increase adolescent girls’ focus on physical appearance: (1) increased focus on others’ physical appearance, due to (a) upward social comparisons, (b) quantifiable indicators of approval, and (c) the blurring of peer and celebrity cultures; and (2) increased focus on one’s own physical appearance, through (a) the “no-longer-imaginary audience,” body monitoring, and appearance-related social media consciousness; (b) over-valuing one’s own attractiveness; (c) quantifiability and the self as a brand; and (d) exposure to one’s own ideal (edited) self.

Overall, we propose that this increased focus on physical appearance may be a key mechanism underlying the associations between adolescent girls’ HVSM use and mental health, via body image concerns. In the context of proposing this theoretical framework, we provide an overview of the state of the literature on adolescents’ social media use and body image concerns, as well as empirically documented links among HVSM, body image concerns, depressive symptoms and disordered eating.

Authors

• Sophia Choukas-Bradley, University of Delaware
  Presenting Author

• Savannah R Roberts, University of Delaware
  Non-Presenting Author

• Anne Maheux, University of Delaware
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jacqueline Nesi, Brown University
  Non-Presenting Author