CALIFORNIA, USA — Eyanna Kincy is 15 years old and a sophomore at Learn4Life Sacramento - Marconi Learning Academy. She said she got on social media in middle school and began feeling the pressures that come along with it.
“Social media is very addicting and, I'm not going to lie, the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is glance an eye at social media,” Kincy said
Jordan Robinson, a mentor with Voice of the Youth in Sacramento, said she has seen the teens she works with compare themselves to unrealistic body frames they see online. It happens so often that, when the teens in her groups are asked what they like about themselves, they can barely answer the question.
“From what I've seen.. they are like 'You see her makeup? You see this and this to her body?' I'm like, OK, and it takes kind of like breaking that down, breaking down the barrier, of let me show you what this is because I can take my photo and I can literally enlarge everything or I can make it smaller. And I can post it, and no one would ever know,” Robinson said.
She said children should build up their self-esteem and make sure that they understand their value and self-worth before starting their journey on social media.
"I think that's where it starts actually, honing in on their characteristics, honing in on their actual worth and being like you are worth so much,” Robinson said.
Dr. Megan Moreno studies the effects that social media has on youth and said that it has the potential for both positive and negative impacts. She said that some of it has to do with how social media is used.
“One of the early studies looked at magazines like 17. And then, in the late 90s, there was a lot of research on reality TV on MTV, and found that some of those shows were really harmful -- both to young women and young men's body image. So, I do think that social media and the findings that are coming out around body image... really line up with what we've seen with other types of media,“ Dr. Moreno said.
Dr. Moreno said if a child is exploring a certain topic related to body image—then algorithm-driven sites like Instagram and TikTok, will keep feeding them that content unless they really take steps to try to disrupt that algorithm.
“I think the algorithm is an interesting thing for us to think about, and whether there's ways that we can diversify what you are seeing, particularly if they're spending too much time in certain communities that might not be helpful to them,” Moreno said.
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