The Effect of Social Media on Women’s Body Satisfaction

Abstract

Color poster with text, images, and graphs.Instagram is a form of social media that allows users to engage in and share photos to the world, and today Instagram has over one billion users worldwide. Past research by Sherlock and Wagstaff (2018) suggests that Instagram use may add to negative psychological outcomes such as worse self-perception and increased self-objectification. The goal of this research is to better understand how Instagram affects young women’s (age 18-26) body image and satisfaction using the “fitspiration” hashtag. Many people—young people in --are heavily influenced by social media, and users should be made more aware of social media’s potentially negative influence.University of Wisconsin--Eau Claire Office of Research and Sponsored Program