The influence of social media on body dissatisfaction among college students

BACKGROUND: Social media is growing rapidly in the last few years and it became daily used by individuals, especially adolescents and young adults. Although social media has several benefits such as easy communication between individuals, it has also other drawbacks and negative influence on individuals. AIM: To assess the association between the level of social media use and body dissatisfaction among male and female college students and to examine these associations according to different types of social media. METHOD: This is a cross-sectional study that was conducted on students at King Saud University in Riyadh—Saudi Arabia, using self-administrated questionnaire “The Body Shape Questionnaire BSQ-8.” Data were analyzed using SPSS statistical software (Version 21.0). RESULTS: The present study included 204 students, females were more dominant (53.9%). Around 47.1% of participants spent >4 h, and the most used type of social media used was Twitter (46.6%). There were 71.1% who had low dissatisfaction. Several factors significantly had an impact on the level of dissatisfaction including upper class status (P = 0.015), using social media for 3–4 h (P = 0.05) and suing social media for more than 4 h (P = 0.011). CONCLUSION: There was low level of dissatisfaction level among students, however this level didn't differ between gender, so social media in Saudi Arabia didn't have the huge effect seen in other countries, especially among females.