Effects of Instagram False Reality on Body Image among University Students of Pakistan

Abstract

Internet, especially the advent to social media has truly revolutionized the globe, making human beings more aware and more addicted at the same time. Social networking sites have been adopted by its users with immense speed, creating borderless social communities and spreading global trends with viral effects. It has also been observed that youth, being digital natives, is more active, persistent and creative user of such platforms. Hence, they are more into tendencies of freely sharing their thoughts, acts and ideals as well as adopting what matches their opinion and feelings. Female users, according to researches, have been found more effected by the social media, especially regarding body image, intra-sexual competition, body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness etc. It has been observed that body ideals cultivate distress and dissatisfaction among female users of social media. The apps and tools of photo editing and makeup filters further aggravated the effects of photo activity on social media. Instagram, as one of the leading social networking site, has multiple of such tools to craft false realities by editing photos. Such false realities have potential to create multiple effects on users, especially female users regarding the body image. This research, by inquiring 400 female university students of Lahore-Pakistan through a quantitative survey, intended to investigate how Instagram photo activity effects young respondents regarding body image, body dissatisfaction, intra-sexual competition and drive for thinness. The results revealed positive relationship between the use of Instagram photo activity and above said variables regarding body image.