tmrw Magazine Feature
This summer while abroad, I caught the last half hour of a documentary that was being shown on BBC World Service, a staple overseas hotel room fixture. The title card read, ‘Smartphones: The Dark Side’. It chronicled the effect of social media on young people's mental health through a few sensitively curated and then broadcasted personal stories.
This is an issue that in recent years has rightfully been pulled into the limelight. Although, still a topic that's deeply misunderstood—in part due to it being stigmatised and shunned away—it appears that these days, thankfully, more people seem to be championing self care and with it mindful internet consumption.
Still, something different struck a chord within me, something poignant had stood out of the screen. It came in the form of the reporter's final line of auto-cued script. Their lasting message? "The next time you reach for your phone, ask yourself why?”. And so, for that very evening I left my phone tucked away in a cupboard while I went out for dinner, and saved myself from mindless scrolling at the dinner table, and the invisible damage that this can cause. In the oddly timely words of Harold Wilson, who's legacy is having a bit of a revival at the moment thanks to how expertly Jason Watkins plays him in the latest season of Netflix's The Crown, we are living through the next “technological revolution”, and everyone is affected.
Today, the smartphone is at the top of the food chain, and in this visual world we are its prey. Instagram launched in 2010 as an innovative new photo sharing app, designed to serve as a platform for artists to share meticulously curated squares of portfolio with others in their industry.
Fast forward 8 years and Instagram is now worth $100 billion. It's projected to surpass 111 million users by 2019, which is just 3 short months away. In late 2017, journalists at The Independent reported that the average Briton checks their phone 28 times a day.
At the same time, more than a quarter of the UK's population will log on to Instagram at least monthly, according to eMarketer's latest forecast of the country's social network usage. The bottom line is that social media use is clearly booming, with 91% of 16-24 year olds in the UK now using the internet regularly.
Here's what I want to put forward, with us glued to our screens, we're undoubtedly going to become recipients of whatever our content feeds are showing us.
We are becoming influenced by 'influencers', with adverts moulded to what we follow, view, and like hounding us day and night. In a world of airbrush, FaceTune and curated digital lifestyles, a blurry line has been etched between our imagining, our world view and our lived reality.
It's a very strange world that we live in, yes, but it's perhaps not so absurd for me, a 20-year-old who grew up surrounded by ceaselessly evolving technology. But older generations may still find the concept of us talking in to cameras, posing for selfies, and playing up our personalities for likes extremely bizarre.
We may find it creative, a show of good business aptitude, or just the norm of mundane everyday life. They may find it trivial, mindless and futile.
With the picture of the sheer excess and vastness of our social media engagement, and the dependancy on smartphones in our daily lives painted, let me now point you in the direction of a growing concern that has spurred from the intensity of this modern phenomenon—the effect on young people’s self esteem—and how many young people are being subconsciously led to believe that they are not attractive enough because they don’t match the unrealistic demand of today’s niche online beauty standard. This is leading some to plastic surgery, body dysmorphia or eating disorders at a young age.
Plastic surgery is a difficult topic to tread. The social culture in the West today champions subliminal autonomy and an atmosphere of zero judgement. We are supposed to say “yes! good for you!”, when someone decides to go under the knife for cosmetic purposes. Combative questioning is simply not welcome. Someone choosing to go under the knife is all well and good, and frankly none of our business unless we’re a close friend or relative of that individual, but when large numbers of girls and boys, of alarmingly young ages, are taking to plastic surgery because an unattainable beauty standard has been hammered in to their brain day after day through social media, we really ought to draw a line, and add more nuance to this conversation.
According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, nearly 65,000 people between the age of 13 and 19 sought cosmetic surgical procedures. Let me just remind you that 18 to 24-year-olds are the biggest demographic on social media.
For decades, people wanted cosmetic surgery to be shielded of all stigma, and miraculously, in 2018, it finally feels like it has. Plastic surgery has been successfully normalised. Recurring social media audiences will note that their favourite beauty blogger, reality TV star or YouTuber may very well have 'had something done', and been honest and open with viewers about their procedures.
While it's of course more mindful to list what you've had done, what sort of message will this send to young followers?
The message could potentially be that this likely already beautiful and successful individual, who has succeeded in amassing an online following, was not attractive or visually appealing enough? This is the worrying undertone of the conclusion that people may come to.
It's a conclusion that's often responded to with comments like, “its none of your business”, or “don’t be so negative, the procedures make them feel happier”. That is all very true, if something makes you feel better then it is undoubtedly a good thing. Many people equate pursuing cosmetic surgery to treating yourself to a new hairstyle or getting your nails done.
However, my bone to pick with this is not in the hands of the sole fashion entrepreneur or otherwise public figure who may be partial to a bit of botox for a lifted brow.
Although at this point in my life cosmetic surgeries are not for me, who am I to judge anyone else? Right? I still enjoy these people's content and continue to trace their digital footprint. My concern is the immersion of photoshop in 'everyday' content and our reluctance to address it and the huge online distribution of these perfectly airbrushed images, and the glorification of unattainable bodies who have clearly been subject to over 20 surgeries and 50 filters.
In this sea of perfection, nobody aiming to grow their following wants to post a photo of themselves that hasn't been edited to the nines on FaceTune, because they will feel naked, they will feel inadequate, and they will feel like they will lose their admiring following. With them setting the standard, many young people simply follow and adapt their image accordingly to whoever it is that they admire or aspire to be. Welcome to the vicious cycle of social media.
The marketing side of things is even more contrived. Here’s how it works, if you appear on a reality TV show and the public take a liking to you, you usually get a few thousand followers on Instagram. If you went on a show with a large following, par exemple, ITV2’s 4 million viewership hit ‘Love Island’, you can even expect to be awarded over a million followers, maybe 2 million, or in the rare case of this year's winner Dani Dyer, 3.2 million.
Now a fully fledged public figure, you then by default become an influencer and companies start queuing up at your PR agents' mailboxes, desperate for you to front their brand as an ambassador or sign on to be the face of a sister collection. These brands are almost always tailored to a young, digitally inclined, market.
Of course, this is nothing new, advertising has always been the forte of the rich and famous, and that's ok. As far as I’m aware not many people have a problem with that. It’s just another norm that we've grown accustomed to. What's new here is that as soon as anyone becomes 'someone', much like in the case of these previously unknown ‘Islanders’, a sizeable chunk of the country flocks to their primary social media platform to drop a follow, signifying their support and admiration of them.
We ALL do this, and here I will highlight my own hypocrisy on the matter, and this is just one element to how the likes of Instagram and Twitter have become as crucial to our every day lives as brushing our teeth. Our constant connectivity has led to a near collective addiction to digital networking, fuelled by the dopamine we get when someone interacts positively with one of our posts.
These influencers and fitspirations (excuse the social media jargon) vow to inspire and educate their followings on healthy, aspirational lifestyles. Indeed, instead of encouraging me to become a healthier version of myself and make positive changes, I ultimately just carry on scrolling mindlessly, envious of how that individual is capitalising on supposedly helping others and has made a reputable name for themselves online.
I like to visualise it by using Harry Potter-coded analogy, weird, I know. Although, I'm not a huge Potter fan, the way that we take a part of us and put it on Instagram to show off to the world is similar to how Voldemort takes a part of himself and places it in a Horcrux to truly personify his individuality and immortalise it.
Back to the point of social medias effect on our self esteem, here are a few statistics to underscore the effect that these app’s are having. The number of women aged between 19 and 34, who get botox and other smaller cosmetic procedures in the US has risen by 41%, since 2011, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.
The industry in the UK is worth a staggering estimated £3.6 Billion. According to BBC Newsnight, 60% of young people who have been bullied for their looks have reportedly tried to change it, with plastic surgeon Dr Derk Kremer stating that, “procedures for millennials are now massively on the rise”. He claimed that Social Media boosts demands for cosmetic surgery, and that he is constantly bombarded with clients wishing to look like an unattainable Instagram star, Kylie Jenner from ‘Keeping Up With The Kardashians’ fame for instance.
Frames Direct discovered that on average a millennial will take 25,700 selfies in their lifetime, while 55% of millennials have been found to share selfies on social media. To date Instagram has more than 250 million #selfie posts. This increases every day. In 2015, The Office for National Statistics found that 27% of children are glued to social sites for 3 hours or more a day, with around 8% of young people aged between 10 and 15 now spending over three hours every day using social media platforms. 56% of preteens have reported spending up to three hours a day on social media. At the same time, rates of anxiety and depression in young people have increased by 70% over the last 25 years.
The Canadian Association for Mental Health states that children as young as 12 have higher doses of anxiety and depression than a few years ago. The American Academy of Facial Plastics and Reconstructive Surgery then found a 31% increase in plastic surgery requests as a result of how people want to present themselves on a social media account.
BBC News reported from findings by the Royal Society for Public Health that Instagram had been ranked the worst social media site for mental health in teenagers. They also said that, “social media has been described as more addictive than cigarettes and alcohol”, and needs “checks and balances" in place to ensure that Instagram does not become a "Wild West for young people”.
40% of online adults have experienced harassment in the digital world. The Centre for Collegiate Mental Health found that the top three diagnosis across university campus' are stress, depression, and anxiety. Numerous studies have linked this rise to increased social media usage. A collection of Canadian Universities found that 7/10 students would go as far as to get rid of their social media accounts if not for FOMO (the fear of missing out). Even my 11-year-old cousin has her very own Instagram account.
Nowadays, it's is not uncommon for people to get lip filler wishes granted as 18th birthday presents. Some people will be horrified to hear this, but others will think that it's the exact same thing as getting braces, or your ears pinned back, but the problem is that lip fillers are a rising trend founded somewhat by Kylie Jenner (remember her lip challenge?) and subservient Instagram models.
Many people have commented on the toxicity of constantly comparing ourselves to others, and seeing our insecurities in light of other people's highlight reels (ironically Instagram has just launched its highlights feature) There exists a social currency for a lot of people where their self value is dependant on the number of likes they receive, The Black Mirror episode Nosedive does a great job of picking apart how this can look.
Nosedive predicted with precision that excessive social media usage could result in changes in the way that we are and the way that we interact with each other. It’s easy to see why. When taking the economy of attention that thrives on our social platforms into fair consideration, we realise that we are the product and that we are attributing value to ourselves and quantifying it for everyone to see. CBC has reported that teens now prioritise money and fame as values of high importance. This can be attributed to the excess of wealth and opulence that can stem from online clout. Of course, in the past few decades as the nature of celebrity culture changed we saw all of our favourite celebs in magazines, but that's nowhere near how much we are swarmed now.
This places an enormous pressure on young people. In the age of reality television and social media, the culture of having the spotlight on yourself and being the star of your own show thrives. It could well have been called a platform because it is literally our very own podium by which we platform ourselves.
Ethically, there are documented and highly publicised problems at play. Social media can be dangerous and deceiving. Increasing loneliness rates are juxtaposed with online exhibitionism. It's been discovered that being constantly active online doesn't activate brain areas that are important for self-reflection, interacting with other people and developing empathy.
Second to this, social media champions beauty. Everyone wants to look perfect and so we use filters to achieve our desired look. Then there's the endless pressure of likes, comments and viral-ity,
The spotlight is on the everyone. The beauty ideal has narrowed, and everyone wants to become it, resulting in many people opting for cosmetic procedures to attain the unattainable. The truth is that changing your appearance will not necessarily boost your self esteem. We should use social media with the right intentions in mind, and champion the idea that everyone is beautiful, even without a nose job or a brow lift. This imposed ideal of perfection is not attainable, and in my opinion it’s not beautiful anymore because it is no longer a unique you. Simply put, we should not feel inadequate next to people who may not even be real.
Social media presented in its purest form is simply the most recent tool that we have employed to do what we've always done, to tell stories and communicate with one another, perhaps we have always been striving to portray a contrived perfection in an imperfect world. So, when you next reach for your phone, ask yourself why? and how impressionable to social media do you think that you are?
READ THE FULL STORY HERE: https://www.tmrwmagazine.com/features/legacy/instagram-plastic-surgery-and-todays-youth
COVER IMAGE CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES
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