Overall, the evaluation of the facts suggests that the consumption of social media ideas creates an irresistible desire to be perfect in western women leading to low self-esteem, depression, eating disorders, and at times, suicide.
Introduction
Modern social media forms including social networks, blogs, e-commerce, discussion forums, and bookmarking sites construct and reinforce normative conceptions of femininity and women’s appearance. According to O-Neill (2014), “young women and girls are under more pressure than ever before to look a certain way” (para. 1). Older women are not an exception to this rule. López-Guimerà et al. (2010) state that women under thirty-five are also prone to the ideas on media beauty standards. This consistent pattern can be seen in the growing amount of women of the above-mentioned age category who regularly visit cosmetologists and cosmetic surgeons with the purpose to look young and beautiful at any cost (López-Guimerà et al., 2010). Of course, for the majority of women, competition with the aging factors as well their genetic predisposition to being large or having any other features of appearance not accepted by the media beauty standards becomes overcomplicated. They have to give up. As a result, they may fall into depression, lose their ability to engage in social life, and even commit suicide. This paper will focus on how women in the west are put under stress due to social media. Overall, the evaluation of the facts suggests that the consumption of social media ideas creates an irresistible desire to be perfect in western women leading to low self-esteem, depression, eating disorders, and at times, suicide.
Main body
First of all, speaking about the way social media puts women in the west under stress, the struggle to be thin is to be discussed. Today, the image of a thin woman as a standard of perfect looks continues to flood social networks, blogs, e-commerce, discussion forums, and bookmarking sites (Roxby, 2014). In fairness, social media are believed to be the most influential power shaping people’s minds and inner world in modern-day society (López-Guimerà et al., 2010). There exist no doubt that different media forms are only gaining their momentum in occupying people’s lives with their prevailing ideas that can be even classified as propaganda (López-Guimerà et al., 2010). Affected by this propaganda, women get stressed, develop low self-esteem, and appear in the risk group for eating disorders or even suicide. According to O-Neill (2014), “girls as young as seven want to lose weight – and the vast majority feel as if they are judged on their looks” (para. 3). Evaluating this comment, it is evident that the concept of media beauty standards puts women under huge stress and even females in the youngest age category face considerable psychological pressure to shape their looks according to the artificially-made image of feminine from the media. In the following comment, the feelings of a young girl affected by the social media outreach are expressed, “there has always been a pressure to be slim but I think it is much worse now because there are so many images online and in the media” (O-Neill, 2014, para. 11). In all, a growing body of evidence supports the fact that women of the west suffer from the psychological pressure to be thin at any cost.
Next, social media puts women in the west under stress even more because along with being thin, it requires women to possess curves attractive to men with big size breasts and round hips. Since such body image is very difficult to have, women become depressed and develop low self-esteem (Miley & Mack, 2009). In her article towards the problems related to the media beauty image, Roxby (2014) narrates the experience of women who could see in practice that due to the nature of human body construction, females may either be thin or have attractive curves. In other words, social media tries to impose artificial standards of beauty that contradict the norms of lipid distribution in women’s bodies. Ladies who strive to have such body image at any cost have to resort to the use of artificial techniques that often result in significant health problems. As a result, such women may end up looking quite attractive at first but with bad health for taking care of a man and bearing children, and the bad looks when complications after such operations develop in years. Moreover, the social media outreach bereaves women of self-confidence and deprives their human dignity. O-Neill (2014) addresses this problem and illustrates it with the real-life example of a young woman Isla, who used to face pressure from social media and learnt how to cope with it. She is now a member of an influential social movement aiming to help women suffering from emotional breakdowns due to stress from social media. Isla states:
It’s really hard for young girls to aspire to be what they want to be because they are constantly being bombarded with messages telling them that they have to do certain things so that men will find them attractive, implying that that’s the only way to be successful in life (O-Neill, 2014, para. 13).
Reflecting on this meaningful comment, it can be said that the social outreach to have perfect looks is a strong influencing power in the society and it should be better managed if people want a positive future for their children, for their families and, thus, for a positively directed development of the human race. No more and no less, pressure from social media is the global power that needs to be controlled.
Further, social media puts women in the west under stress by imposing the need to apply a significant amount of make-up or do cosmetic surgeries to look pretty. According to Hampton (2011), agitprops from social media state that men will not like women unless their cheeks are rosy enough, eyes, eyelashes, eyebrows, and lips are captivating, and the face tone is attractive. At that, there is no lack of understanding that such recommendations target bigger sales of cosmetic products (Miley & Mack, 2009). To achieve the result advertised on social media, ladies tend to spend over twenty minutes a day prepping themselves before they leave home. Most women do not go out even to make minor shopping or drop litter unless they have enough make-up. Hampton (2011) explains that such a complex procedure of prepping is very stressful for women. As a consequence, they start feeling trapped, develop low self-esteem and depression. Remarkably, even in young girls who begin to use cosmetics, scientists have noticed significant disappointment due to the need to apply make-up any time, any day when they leave home or even stay at home and connect other people via the video connection (Roxby, 2014). Furthermore, according to Roxby (2014), “the MPs’ report said pressure to look good had pushed up cosmetic surgery rates by nearly 20% since 2008.” (para. 9). This development is another source of stress for women in the west because such procedures cost fortunes and for most women, they are inaccessible.
From the point of view of the opponents of the position that social media has a stressful impact on women in the west, social media plays an important role in helping them have more impact on men through the implementation of the beauty standards recommendations. Thus, those who stick to this position believe that women benefit from the abundance of recommendations on how to look well on social media (Hampton, 2011). For fairness’ sake, it is important to mention that there exist women who respond favorably when they are asked about their idea of the pros and cons of beauty standards intrusion in the media. Such women state that they find a piece of valuable advice in social media on how to look attractive for men, and they could not find it in other places and for free. However, it is important to take greater tendencies into account. Below, the refutation of this position will come.
The positive effect of social media is doubtful due to the abundance of negative examples in western women. This means that from the growing body of evidence, the majority of women experience stress and not relief due to all the beauty recommendation improvement on the net (López-Guimerà et al., 2010; Roxby, 2014). “But they are seeing the world through a filter, and that’s not healthy”, commented one of the ladies who used to suffer from psychological problems due to the pressure from social media and is now helping others to cope with the problem. Judging from this comment, a conclusion can be made that women in the west lose satisfaction in life due to social media outreach. Hampton (2011) qualified this outreach as a human-made obstacle for real happiness. Thus, women in the west do experience stress due to social media.
Conclusion
In conclusion, varied forms of media play more than considerable role in society in every area including women’s beauty standards. Under the influence of such media forms, people start changing their common point of view, and even the whole way of thinking. Among the most influential forms of social media, there are social networks, blogs, e-commerce, discussion forums, and bookmarking sites. In today’s society, all these social media forms propagate the idea that women have to adhere to the media standards of beauty. Evaluating a row of the facts, it appears that the consumption of media forms influences people to hold certain beliefs about femininity and women’s looks and other related concepts and issues. Such beliefs are harmful and can be seen as a reason for women’s low self-esteem, depression, suicide, and other negative developments in society. Thus, there are reasons to believe that such a state of affairs with social media and women’s wellbeing needs alterations. A balanced view of women’s beauty needs to be adopted. This new media image of a beautiful woman should consider the health issues, physical peculiarities of women’s constitution, balanced view of diversity, and psychological considerations such as women’s social comfort and human dignity.
References
Hampton, K. N. (2011). Core networks, social isolation, and new media: internet and mobile phone use, network size, and diversity. Information, Communication & Society 14(1): 130-155.
López-Guimerà, G., Levine, M. P., Sánchez-Carracedo, D., & Fauquet, J. (2010). Influence of mass media on body image and eating disordered attitudes and behaviours in females: a
review of effects and processes. Media Psychology, 13, 387-416.
Miley, M., & Mack, A. (2009). The new female consumer: the rise of the real mom. Advertising Age, 80(39), 1-29.
O-Neill, C. (2014).Young women and girls are under more pressure than ever to achieve so-called ‘perfection’, experts warn. Web.
Roxby, P. (2014). Does social media impact body image?BBC News. Web.