Reduction in Social Media Usage Improves Body Image in Teens

According to study findings made public by the American Psychological Association, teens and young adults who cut back on social media use by 50% for just a few weeks felt significantly better about their weight and overall appearance than their friends who continued to use it at the same rate. Social media in general has a huge impact on body image in teens.

“Adolescence is a vulnerable period for the development of body image issues, eating disorders, and mental illness,” said lead author Gary Goldfield, Ph.D., of Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute. “Youth are spending, on average, between six to eight hours per day on screens, much of it on social media. Social media can expose users to hundreds or even thousands of images and photos every day, including those of celebrities and fashion or fitness models, which we know leads to an internalization of beauty ideals that are unattainable for almost everyone, resulting in greater dissatisfaction with body weight and shape.”

According to Goldfield, most psychological research on social media, body image, and mental health is correlational, so it is unclear whether those who struggle with their body image and mental health spend more time on social media or if their usage of it causes their troubles to worsen.

Goldfield and his colleagues previously conducted a pilot study with 38 undergraduate students who had elevated levels of anxiety and/or depression. He wanted to understand the causal impacts of limiting social media use on body image in teens. While others were given unfettered access, some of the participants were requested to keep their daily social media usage to no more than 60 minutes.

After three weeks, participants with restricted use exhibited improvements in how they felt about their overall look (but not their weight) compared to participants with unlimited access. However, because of the small sample size, the researchers were unable to meaningfully analyze the impact of gender.

The current study, conducted with 220 undergraduate students aged 17 to 25, included 76% female participants, 23% male participants, and 1% other participants. It was published in the journal Psychology of Popular Media. Participants had to regularly use social media (at least two hours per day on their smartphones) and display signs of depression or anxiety in order to be eligible.

All participants were told to utilize social media as usual throughout the first week of the trial. Using a screentime tracking tool from which users submitted a daily screenshot, social media use was quantified. Half of the participants were told to limit their usage of social media to no more than 60 minutes per day after the first week.

Beginning with a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 representing “always,” participants were also asked a series of questions on their general appearance (e.g., “I’m very happy about the way I look”) and weight (e.g., “I am satisfied with my weight”). A comparable survey was completed by participants after the experiment.

In contrast to the control group, which used social media for an average of 188 minutes per day over the following three weeks, participants who were told to cut back on their usage cut it by roughly 50% to an average of 78 minutes per day.

In comparison to the control group, which had no significant change, participants who cut back on their social media use had much better opinions of their overall appearance and body weight three weeks after the intervention. The effects did not seem to be affected by gender in any way.

Our brief, four-week intervention using screentime trackers showed that reducing social media use yielded significant improvements in appearance and weight esteem in distressed youth with heavy social media use,” said Goldfield. “Reducing social media use is a feasible method of producing a short-term positive effect on body image among a vulnerable population of users and should be evaluated as a potential component in the treatment of body-image-related disturbances.”

While the current study was conducted as a proof of concept, Goldfield and his colleagues are in the process of conducting a larger study to see if the reduction in social media use can be maintained for longer periods and whether that reduction can lead to improving body image in teens and greater psychological benefits.

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