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Social media filters may seem like a bit of harmless fun, but when they lead to 'Snapchat dysmorphia', the fun turns to concern. Journalist Juliette Astrup explores the impact on young people's health and wellbeing.
Like it or not, social media has become a huge part of modern life. Globally, internet users spent more than two hours a day social networking last year (Statista, 2018), and in June more than two million snaps were sent by Snapchat users every minute (DOMO, 2018).
Among the biggest creators and consumers of social media content are children and young people - the so-called digital natives - who are thought to make up one in three internet users (Livingston et al, 2015). For them, it is a ubiquitous form of communication and, despite the age limit of 13 stipulated on most major social media platforms, almost one in four 8- to 11-year-olds and three in four 12- to 15-year-olds have a social media profile (Ofcom, 2017). What's more, the percentage of children in the UK who spend more than three hours a day using social networking sites has increased significantly in recent years (ONS, 2018).
While research has found many potential positive influences, such as increasing social connection and sharing identities and ideas, a body of evidence is growing around the harm social media might be causing (Frith, 2017).
SELFIE-OBSESSED
In this new realm of communication, the image - notably the selfie - is king, with sites such as Snapchat and Instagram devoted to photo- and video-sharing.
Popular features of these sites are the 'filters' or 'lenses' that alter and enhance images, perhaps adding a crown of flowers to a head, or a comic nose and ears to a face. Fun though they may be, they also allow users to soften the look of their skin, alter the size of their eyes, lips, and cheeks, and 'improve' various aspects of 'S their physical appearance.
But questions are now being asked about how this might be influencing young people's selfesteem, or even contributing to mental health conditions such as body-dysmorphic disorder, which causes a person to have a distorted view of how they look and to spend a lot of time worrying about their appearance.
'Young people...