England (Commonwealth Union) – The impact of social media on the younger generation has been the spotlight in recent years, with addictions to devices and online bullying raising concerns.
A recent study led by University of the West of Scotland (UWS), who joined hands with University of Glasgow and University of Strathclyde, evaluated participants’ eye movements as they looked at a range of Instagram images of other women’s faces and bodies, of different sizes.
Dr Graham Scott, Reader in the School of Education and Social Sciences, who led the study at UWS, stated that the findings give insight into the mechanisms of a possibly troublesome cycle advanced by social media platforms. “Exposure to damaging images leads to feeling inferior when taking part in social comparison and, as a result, personal satisfaction in users. This, in turn, could promote a tendency for users to pay more attention to more damaging images,” he said.
Researchers have suggested more research for the phenomenon on men, to gain more knowledge into social media’s impact.
The findings indicated that participants had more focus on other women’s bodies than their faces, and liked images of underweight and average women, instead of overweight women.
For body-only images, participants looked at underweight body images over average or overweight, with less time viewing overweight bodies than average or underweight. For face-only images, participants chose the faces of average women, rather than the faces of underweight or overweight women which can be understood by participants viewing what they deemed was ‘most attractive’.
Figures were fixated on more often and for longer than faces, which is said to be associated with the fact that torsos contain more weight-linked cues than faces, implying female users had increased interest in images of other women’s bodies, as these had increased suggestion of idealized ‘slimness’. Female viewers’ idea of their bodies is typically of raised personal importance and will lead visual attention while seeing pictures of others on social media.
