Cargando…
Processing Body Image on Social Media: Gender Differences in Adolescent Boys’ and Girls’ Agency and Active Coping
Although scholars continue to debate the influence of social media on body image, increased social media use, especially engaging in appearance-related behaviors may be a potential risk factor for body dissatisfaction in adolescents. Little research has investigated how adolescents process appearanc...
Autores principales: | , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2021
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8175666/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34093311 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.626763 |
_version_ | 1783703091583909888 |
---|---|
author | Mahon, Ciara Hevey, David |
author_facet | Mahon, Ciara Hevey, David |
author_sort | Mahon, Ciara |
collection | PubMed |
description | Although scholars continue to debate the influence of social media on body image, increased social media use, especially engaging in appearance-related behaviors may be a potential risk factor for body dissatisfaction in adolescents. Little research has investigated how adolescents process appearance-related content and the potential strategies they use to protect body image perceptions on social media. To investigate coping strategies used by adolescents, four qualitative focus groups were conducted with 29 adolescents (23 girls) aged 15–16 years (M = 15.31, SD = 0.47) in mixed-gender Irish secondary schools. Thematic analysis revealed that adolescents employed many different behavioral strategies such as avoiding negative content and selecting positive content. Cognitive processing strategies such as critically evaluating body-related content, psychologically distancing from and positively reframing challenging content were also used, although less frequently. Boys appeared to exhibit greater positive agency over their bodies and social media use and tended to use more active coping styles than girls. Efforts to promote body image on social media such as body positive pages and exposing artificial social media content were considered limited in their effectiveness. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8175666 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-81756662021-06-05 Processing Body Image on Social Media: Gender Differences in Adolescent Boys’ and Girls’ Agency and Active Coping Mahon, Ciara Hevey, David Front Psychol Psychology Although scholars continue to debate the influence of social media on body image, increased social media use, especially engaging in appearance-related behaviors may be a potential risk factor for body dissatisfaction in adolescents. Little research has investigated how adolescents process appearance-related content and the potential strategies they use to protect body image perceptions on social media. To investigate coping strategies used by adolescents, four qualitative focus groups were conducted with 29 adolescents (23 girls) aged 15–16 years (M = 15.31, SD = 0.47) in mixed-gender Irish secondary schools. Thematic analysis revealed that adolescents employed many different behavioral strategies such as avoiding negative content and selecting positive content. Cognitive processing strategies such as critically evaluating body-related content, psychologically distancing from and positively reframing challenging content were also used, although less frequently. Boys appeared to exhibit greater positive agency over their bodies and social media use and tended to use more active coping styles than girls. Efforts to promote body image on social media such as body positive pages and exposing artificial social media content were considered limited in their effectiveness. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-05-21 /pmc/articles/PMC8175666/ /pubmed/34093311 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.626763 Text en Copyright © 2021 Mahon and Hevey. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Psychology Mahon, Ciara Hevey, David Processing Body Image on Social Media: Gender Differences in Adolescent Boys’ and Girls’ Agency and Active Coping |
title | Processing Body Image on Social Media: Gender Differences in Adolescent Boys’ and Girls’ Agency and Active Coping |
title_full | Processing Body Image on Social Media: Gender Differences in Adolescent Boys’ and Girls’ Agency and Active Coping |
title_fullStr | Processing Body Image on Social Media: Gender Differences in Adolescent Boys’ and Girls’ Agency and Active Coping |
title_full_unstemmed | Processing Body Image on Social Media: Gender Differences in Adolescent Boys’ and Girls’ Agency and Active Coping |
title_short | Processing Body Image on Social Media: Gender Differences in Adolescent Boys’ and Girls’ Agency and Active Coping |
title_sort | processing body image on social media: gender differences in adolescent boys’ and girls’ agency and active coping |
topic | Psychology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8175666/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34093311 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.626763 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT mahonciara processingbodyimageonsocialmediagenderdifferencesinadolescentboysandgirlsagencyandactivecoping AT heveydavid processingbodyimageonsocialmediagenderdifferencesinadolescentboysandgirlsagencyandactivecoping |