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Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications An Examination of Youths’ Social Media Use and Body Image: Considering TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram Charlotte H. Markey, Kristin J. August, Meghan M. Gillen, and Diane L. Rosenbaum
Online First Publication, March 13, 2024. https://dx.doi.org/10.1027/1864-1105/a000420
CITATION
Markey, C. H., August, K. J., Gillen, M. M., & Rosenbaum, D. L. (2024). An examination of youths’ social media use and body image: Considering TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram.. Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications. Advance online publication. https://dx.doi.org/10.1027/1864-1105/ a000420
Research Report
An Examination of Youths’ Social Media Use and Body Image Considering TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram
Charlotte H. Markey1 , Kristin J. August1 , Meghan M. Gillen2 , and Diane L. Rosenbaum2
1Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, Camden, NJ, USA 2Pennsylvania State University, Abington, PA, USA
Abstract: Research has suggested that social media use may present a risk to body image, but limited research explores newer social media platforms and how they are used. This study examined 275 youths’ (Mage = 20.71) social media use in association with both positive and negative aspects of body image. Participants completed an online survey that included body image measures and items that queried them about the social media platforms they used (e.g., TikTok) and the activities they engaged in on these platforms. Findings indicated that women were more engaged in social media use and had lower body esteem and higher body shame and surveillance than men. Simultaneous regression analyses revealed that appearance-focused social media use, but not communication-focused use, was associated with negative body image. Age moderated the association between appearance-focused social media use and body appreciation. Together, these findings suggest that age, gender, and the ways in which youth use social media are important to consider in understanding potential risk for body image concerns.
Keywords: body image, social media, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok
In 2022, half the world’s population was reported to use social media (Statistica, 2024). Social media platforms such as TikTok are increasingly popular, depicting not just beauty ideals but recipes for supposed health and happi- ness. Unfortunately, the information on social media is often not evidence-based or conducive to the mental or physical health of its users. Researchers, practitioners, and laypersons have expressed concerns that social media poses a risk to youth mental health in general, and body image in particular (de Valle et al., 2021; Rasmussen et al., 2020). However, some research (e.g., Orben & Przybylski, 2019) reveals only small effects when examining the link between digital technology use and well-being among young people. In the present study, we contribute to the research on social media and body image by considering relatively new and popular platforms among young people (TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram), examining both body dissatisfaction and positive body image, exploring participants’ uses of social media (i.e., how they use platforms, as communication tools versus sources of appearance-based information), and considering gender and age.
Relating Social Media Use and Body Perceptions
Recent meta-analyses show that higher rates of social media use are associated with body dissatisfaction and dis- ordered eating among youth, with small to moderate effect sizes (Huang et al., 2021; Saiphoo & Vahedi, 2019). There is less research on newer social media sites such as TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram, yet emerging research suggests using these sites may be associated with body image con- cerns. Snapchat is a highly visual social media site where users can enhance content using lenses and filters. In one study, college students who use more Snapchat lenses reported more body image concerns (Burnell et al., 2022). TikTok and Instagram, both highly visual social media sites, may also increase young women’s risk for body image con- cerns (Engeln et al., 2020; Mink & Syzmanski, 2022). In particular, viewing fitspiration content on these sites has been related to lower body satisfaction and appreciation (Barron, et al., 2021; Pryde & Pritchard, 2022). Other research, however, shows that TikTok and Instagram use
�2024 Hogrefe Publishing Journal of Media Psychology https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-1105/a000420
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did not significantly relate to changes in adolescent girls’ body image (Maes & Vandenbosch, 2022).
Emerging research suggests that social media that includes body positive content – which does not rely on ide- alized images of beauty and often challenges beauty norms – may be positively related to body image (Fioravanti et al., 2022; Stevens & Griffiths, 2020). This content has the potential to introduce users to diverse conceptualizations of beauty and a more self-accepting mindset than does typical media, which seems to encourage social comparison (Vogel et al., 2014). With this in mind, the current study expands the existing literature by considering associations between social media use and both positive and negative facets of body image.
How Does Social Media Use Relate To Body Image?
Given the pervasive use of social media and the unlikeliness that young people will stop using it, it is important to under- stand what it is about social media that may be associated with body image. The amount of time spent on social media is not consistently related to body image outcomes. Spend- ing less time on Facebook has been related to both higher positive body image and greater orientation toward appear- ance among adults (Rosenbaum et al., 2024; Rutledge et al., 2013). In another study, the amount of time on social media was not significantly related to body dissatisfaction, but the number of social media sites visited was (Bennett et al., 2020). Related, it seems that visual platforms (e.g., Insta- gram) are more likely to be associated with body dissatis- faction than text-based platforms (e.g., Twitter; Engeln, et al., 2020). Similar to research suggesting that magazine use is related to body concerns, it is not just the images but the content it is paired with (e.g., dieting strategies; Peirce, 1990) that appear to be relevant to body image. By this same logic, it is also possible that body positive social media content, such as representation of an array of body types paired with captions celebrating body func- tionality, may be linked to greater positive body image.
Specific types of social media engagement have been associated with users’ body image. For example, among a sample of women who had recently given birth, passive Facebook use (i.e., viewing others’ content) was related to lower positive body image (Rosenbaum et al., 2024). Fur- ther, appearance-focused social media use, such as viewing information specifically about beauty enhancement (e.g., beauty tutorials) is associated with greater body dissatisfac- tion (Burnell et al., 2022; Markey & Daniels, 2022). Given these findings suggesting the potential drawbacks associ- ated with appearance-based social media use (Mingoia et al., 2017), we examined type of social media engagement
(i.e., appearance-focused vs. communication-focused use, e.g., messaging friends) in this study.
The Roles of Gender and Age
Girls have been found to use social media at higher rates (Common Sense Media, 2019) and are at higher risk for body image disturbance than boys (Neumark-Sztainer et al., 2018). Some research suggests that social media is associated with poor mental health for young people in gen- eral, but this is especially true among girls, reflected in higher mental health diagnoses among girls but not boys (Kelly et al., 2018; Rasmussen et al., 2020). This may be, in part, because of gender differences in consumption of social media. Mahon and Hevey (2021) reported that girls and boys respond to social media differently, with boys hav- ing a greater sense of agency over their media experiences and a greater tendency to actively seek out positive content compared to girls.
The majority of young adults use social media daily, but research has yet to clarify whether the links between social media use and body image depend on age. One meta-ana- lysis (Shannon et al., 2022) that examined social media use in relation to various mental health outcomes (but not body image) did not find age to moderate these relations, but other research (e.g., Tsitsika et al., 2014) suggests that younger users may be more vulnerable to negative mental health consequences of social media use.
The Present Study
In this study we examine how relatively popular, new, and dynamic social media may be related to body perceptions among youth. Further, we consider not just facets of body dissatisfaction, but body appreciation, and we examine both age and gender in our analyses. We expected that the number of platforms used by participants, an estimate of participants’ investment in social media use, would be positively associated with lower body esteem and body appreciation, and higher self-objectification (Hypothesis 1). Next, we expected that greater appearance-focused rather than communication-focused use would be related to lower body esteem and body appreciation and higher levels of self-objectification (Hypothesis 2). Finally, after controlling for age, gender, and number of different plat- forms used, we hypothesized that participants’ appear- ance-focused (but not communication-focused) social media use would relate to lower body esteem and body appreciation as well as higher levels of self-objectification (Hypothesis 3). We also explored whether age and gender moderated these potential relations.
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Method
Participants and Procedures
Participants were mostly young adults (Mage = 20.71; SD = 4.52; range = 18–40, with 94% being under 30 years old); most (N = 201) self-identified as female, N = 71 identified as male, and N = 3 indicated that they did not identify as male or female (these participants were removed from analyses). Thirty-two percent of the participants identified as white/Euro-American, 27% as Black/African American, 21% as Latino/Hispanic, 16% as Asian, and 4% as an other racial/ethnic background. The majority of participants (86%) were recruited through the subject pool at a univer- sity in the northeastern U.S. An advertisement for the study was also shared via email and social media. Participants completed a consent form and our brief survey online; the only compensation was class credit for student partici- pants. The study protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Board at Rutgers University. The authors are willing to share their data, analytic methods, and study materials upon request.
Measures
Social Media Accounts and Engagement Participants were asked to indicate if they had accounts (1 = “yes,” 0 = “no”) on Facebook, Twitter,1 Instagram, Snap- chat and TikTok. Less than half of participants had a Face- book or Twitter account and participants who had these accounts indicated low engagement (i.e., not checking plat- forms regularly). Given that participation in these platforms was lower and that they are older sites that have been stud- ied more extensively, we focused our analyses on three newer, more popular social media platforms: Instagram (ac- counts held by 88%), Snapchat (76%) and TikTok (76%). Only 3 participants did not use any social media platforms. In analyses that examined the number of platforms where participants had accounts, we included all the platforms we queried about; participants without accounts were not included in these analyses. Number of platforms was con- ceptualized as a measure of investment in social media use but was not intended to capture the amount of time spent on social media, which was not our focus.
Items were adapted from Markey and Daniels’ (2022) measure to determine participants’ uses of social media; these items were updated based on the capabilities of the social media platforms in 2021, when data collection began. Two subscales were created for Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok use: (1) communication-focused functions (e.g.,
“send a message,” 19 items; α = .88) and (2) appearance- focused functions (e.g., “view beauty accounts featuring make-up or fashion,” 18 items; α = .93). Items were rated on a 5-point scale (1 = almost never or never, 5 = nearly every time I log on) and averaged to create the two subscales.
Body Appreciation Body appreciation was assessed using the 10-item Body Appreciation Scale-2 (Tylka & Wood-Barcalow, 2015; e.g., “I take a positive attitude towards my body”). Items were rated on a 5-point scale (1 = never, 5 = always) and averaged to create a total score (α = .95).
Self-Objectification Self-objectification was assessed using the 4-item Surveil- lance and the 5-item Shame subscales of the Objectified Body Consciousness Scale for Youth (Lindberg et al., 2006; e.g., “I often worry about how I look to other peo- ple”). Items were rated on a 7-point scale (1 = strongly dis- agree, 7 = strongly agree) and averaged to create two subscales: Surveillance (α = .89) and Shame (α = .87).
Body Esteem Body esteem was assessed using a 21-item modified version of the Body Esteem Scale (Mendelson et al., 2001; e.g., “I like what I see when I look in the mirror”). Items were rated on a 5-point scale (1 = never, 5 = always) and averaged to create a total score (α = .93).
Results
Correlations were conducted to examine associations among social media and body image constructs as well as age and gender. We found that women used more social media platforms and engaged in more communication- and appearance-focused use as compared to men (r = �.29 and r = �.33, respectively). They also reported lower body esteem (r = .12) and higher body objectification (both the shame and surveillance subscales, r = �.16 and r = �.23, respectively). We also found that older age was asso- ciated with less communication-focused social media use (r = �.20; see Table 1).
Correlation analyses also addressed Hypotheses 1 and 2. We only found partial support for Hypothesis 1 such that using more social media platforms was associated with higher body shame (r = .12), but not other body image vari- ables. We also found support for Hypothesis 2 such that greater appearance-focused social media use was associ- ated with higher body shame and body surveillance
1 Twitter was officially rebranded as X in July 2023. Due to the timing of the research/the article’s acceptance date, we have retained the name Twitter in this article.
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(r = .58 and r = .57, respectively), and lower body esteem and body appreciation (r = �.31 and r = �.24, respectively). Greater communication-focused social media use was asso- ciated with higher body shame and body surveillance (r = .28 and r = .33, respectively; see Table 1).
To address Hypothesis 3, we conducted simultaneous regressions predicting the four body image outcomes. We found that greater appearance-focused social media use was the only consistently significant predictor and was asso- ciated with higher body shame and surveillance and lower body appreciation and esteem. However, greater age also uniquely predicted higher body esteem and body apprecia- tion (see Table 2).
Finally, because appearance-focused social media use was the only uniquely significant predictor of body image outcomes, we examined age (continuous) and gender as possible moderators of appearance-focused social media use in predicting body image constructs. Only one interac- tion was significant: age moderated appearance-focused social media use in predicting body appreciation (b = .19 (SE = .08), p = .02; model R2 = .14, p = .003). In probing this significant interaction using the Johnson-Neyman tech- nique, we found that when age is less than 22.94, the effect of appearance-focused social media use and body appreci- ation is significantly different from zero. That is, among participants less than 22.94, more appearance-focused social media use was related to lower body appreciation.
Discussion
The present study of a racially/ethnically diverse sample of young people extends prior research on social media use and body image in three key ways: (1) We examined social media platforms that have received relatively little research attention in relation to body image, in spite of their popular- ity among youth; (2) We examined associations with both positive and negative aspects of body image; and (3) We
considered the roles of gender and age in understanding these associations.
The majority of participants reported using TikTok, Insta- gram, and Snapchat, and partially consistent with Hypothe- sis 1, the number of platforms used was associated with body shame. Other research among young adolescents has revealed a similar pattern of findings (Salomon & Brown, 2019), with more frequent self-monitoring – likely resulting from internalization of cultural body standards –
as a mechanism that explained this association. As young people accrue more social media accounts, there may be more pressure to monitor their appearance for larger audi- ences and more accounts likely translates into more time invested in social media use. Monitoring self-presentation on social media takes effort and energy and may lead to body shame when individuals feel like they cannot measure up to appearance expectations.
Consistent with Hypotheses 2 and 3, our regression analyses indicated that appearance-focused use was con- sistently associated with both less positive and more nega- tive body image, even after controlling for age, gender, communication-focused use, and number of platforms used. It seems likely that appearance-focused use encour- ages social comparison because if a celebrity, influencer, or even peer is presenting themselves as focused on beauty or fitness in some idealistic way (e.g., applying make-up, participating in a fitness routine), this is likely to encourage viewers to consider their own behaviors relative to what they are viewing. Past research has established that social comparison when viewing media is related to more body image concerns (Vogel et al., 2014). However, users have the ability to curate their own newsfeeds, and if young peo- ple appreciate that appearance-focused content may detract from their body image, it may be easier for them to not endorse (i.e., “like” or “follow”) these social media accounts. In other words, these findings are consistent with some past research (e.g., Markey & Daniels, 2022) that suggests that the content people engage with may be more
Table 1. Correlations among social media use, body image, and other study variables
Mean (SD)
Social media appearance-
focused Number of platforms
Body shame
Body surveillance
Body appreciation
Body esteem Gender Age
Social media: communication-focused 3.16 (0.71) .503** .597** .284** .328** �.087 �.073 �.291** �.201*
Social media: appearance-focused 2.49 (0.87) – .387** .582** .569** �.241* �.306** �.334** .071
Number of platforms 3.77 (1.36) – .123* .104 .029 .008 �.130* �.019
Body shame 3.63 (1.72) – .776** �.642** �.731** �.164** .077
Body surveillance 4.71 (1.72) – �.529** �.608** �.233** .001
Body appreciation 3.46 (0.97) – .872** .088 .054
Body esteem 3.02 (0.79) – .123* �.002
Gender 74% F; 26% M – .199*
Age 20.71 (4.52) –
Note. Gender is coded 0 = female and 1 = male. *p < .05, **p < .01.
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significant than the number of platforms or time spent on different platforms in understanding consequences of social media use for youth.
Inconsistent with Hypothesis 2 and some past research (e.g., Markey & Daniels, 2022), communication-focused use was significantly related to more negative body image– but only in bivariate analyses. Thus, although appearance- focused use seemed to have more robust relations with body image, communication-focused use may also be important. It is unclear from these findings if communica- tion-focused use leads to more appearance-focused use and if the two are often intertwined; analyses revealed a moderate correlation between the two types of uses, but causal relations cannot be determined.
Consistent with previous work, we also found that women were more likely than men to engage with social media as a communication tool, view appearance-focused content, and reported higher body dissatisfaction (Common Sense Media, 2019; Neumark-Sztainer et al., 2018). Specif- ically, women had lower body esteem and higher levels of body shame and surveillance. Given young adult women’s high risk for eating disorders (National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH], n.d.) coupled with a greater likelihood of being the targets of problematic content on social media (Mahon & Hevey, 2021), intervention efforts should be
tailored to address women’s unique social media experiences.
Despite the limited variability in age in our sample (79.3% of the sample was < 21), age appears to be relevant to social media use experiences and body image. Specifi- cally, our moderation analyses revealed that younger partic- ipants reported lower levels of body appreciation when using social media for appearance-focused reasons. These findings suggest that within the young adult age range, the younger the person, the greater the vulnerability to potential adverse correlates of social media. Efforts to address these possible adverse effects on body image dur- ing this impressionable period of the lifespan in which many mental health problems are often first diagnosed are particularly important (National Institute of Mental Health NIMH, n.d.; Wood et al., 2018). Young people should be educated on the links between social media use and body image (e.g., in school) so they can make informed decisions about use.
Limitations and Conclusions
Although we believe this is one of only a handful of studies to examine relatively new social media platforms (including TikTok) in relation to body perceptions among youth, there
Table 2. Regression analyses predicting body image variables
b (SE) p R2 p
Outcome: Body shame .35 < .001
Age .74 (.82) .37
Gender .19 (.40) .64
Number of platforms .13 (.15) .39
Social media – Communication-focused .01 (.31) .97
Social media – Appearance-focused 1.11 (.21) < .001
Outcome: Body surveillance .34 < .001
Age �.02 (.04) .65
Gender .11 (.40) .78
Number of platforms �.02 (.14) .87
Social media – Communication-focused .29 (.30) .35
Social media – Appearance-focused 1.04 (.21) < .001
Outcome: Body appreciation .15 .02
Age .07 (.02) < .001
Gender �.14 (.25) .58
Number of platforms �.06 (.09) .53
Social media – Communication-focused .17 (.19) .37
Social media – Appearance-focused �.33 (.13) .01
Outcome: Body esteem .15 .02
Age .04 (.02) .04
Gender �.03 (.20) .86
Number of platforms �.07 (.07) .33
Social media – Communication-focused .13 (.15) .41
Social media – Appearance-focused �.28 (.10) .01
Note. Significant findings are bolded. Findings for interactions not shown here.
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are limitations of this study that warrant mention. Specifi- cally, we created items for this study to examine types of social media engagement that were relevant during the time frame when our data collection took place, but future researchers should consider the constant evolution of these and other platforms as well as their different potential uses. Further, studies that assess the amount of time spent on social media (e.g., Rutledge et al., 2013) suggest this may be an important variable to consider alongside types of social media engagement. Longitudinal and experimental studies are needed to further understand the extent to which social media use is predictive of body image con- cerns among youth versus the possibility that body image concerns lead users to seek out social media that focuses on appearance issues, such as beauty tutorials and fitness videos; these studies may also help shed light on possible moderating or mediating variables. In addition, our study had more women than men and had limited variability in age; future research should attempt to better understand links between body image and social media use among diverse groups.
Despite these limitations, this study adds to our under- standing of relatively new social media platforms and body image among young adults. Social media use has raised concerns among researchers, clinicians, and parents due to studies indicating links between body image concerns and social media use (e.g., Huang et al., 2021) but the extent to which these effects are large enough to warrant changes in approaches to parenting and policy have been questioned (Orben & Przybylski, 2019). Findings from the present study indicate that the majority of youth are using social media, but the relations with body image vary some- what dependent on users’ type of engagement. Our results suggest avoidance of appearance-focused social media, including fitness influencers, beauty tutorials, and celebrity culture, may be advantageous to youths’ body image. Of course, social media may not only detract from body image concerns, but with the increasing focus on body positivity, social media also has the potential to be used to counteract unrealistic beauty ideals (see Cohen et al., 2021; Markey & Daniels, 2022). Future research is needed to determine the extent to which engaging with body positive social media versus appearance-focused and communication-focused social media may be linked with body image.
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History Received April 28, 2023 Revision received December 8, 2023 Accepted December 12, 2023 Published online March 13, 2024
Publication Ethics Participants completed a consent form and our brief survey online; the only compensation was class credit for student participants. The study protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Board at Rutgers University.
Open Data The authors are willing to share their data, analytic methods, and study materials upon request.
Funding This work has been supported by an award to Charlotte Markey from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.
ORCID Charlotte Markey
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5431-6017 Diane L. Rosenbaum
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0883-7289 Meghan Gillen
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2670-3025 Kristin August
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2583-3538
Charlotte H. Markey Department of Psychology Rutgers University 311 N. 5th Street Camden, NJ 08102 USA chmarkey@camden.rutgers.edu
Charlotte H. Markey (PhD) is Professor of Psychology and Chair of the Health Sciences Department at Rutgers University, Camden. Professor Markey is a Fellow of the American Psycho- logical Association. Professor Mar- key’s main focus is on body image, eating behaviors and health. She has published a number of books in addition to journal articles in her field.
Kristin J. August (PhD) is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Psy- chology and Health Sciences and Director of the Graduate Program in Prevention Science at Rutgers University, Camden. Her primary re- search interest focuses on the link between close relationships and health, with a secondary interest in the connection between physical and mental health more broadly, including topics such as body image and stress.
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Meghan M. Gillen (PhD) is a Professor of Psychology at the Pennsylvania State University, Abington. Her re- search focuses on body image and eating behaviors. She serves on the editorial boards for four journals in her field. At Penn State, she has mentored over 30 students on inde- pendent research projects and won both Outstanding Teaching and Re- search Awards.
Diane L. Rosenbaum (PhD) is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psy- chology at the Pennsylvania State University, Abington. Her research focuses on the intersection of mental and physical health, with an empha- sis on eating behaviors, weight stig- ma, body image, and women’s health issues. She is also interested in uti- lization of technology to enhance the reach of evidence-based clinical practices. She currently serves as a section editor and as an editorial board member for journals in her field.
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