A new study revealed that women who spend more time surfing Facebook are more prone to having body insecurities as they tend to compare their bodies their friends and celebrities posted on the social networking site.
Researchers from the University of Strathclyde, the University of Iowa, and Ohio University concluded that the increased time a woman spent on Facebook leads to increased negative feelings and increased chances of comparison to the bodies of other women in Facebook.
They recruited 881 college women and interviewed them about the time they spent on Facebook, habits on eating and exercising, and understanding on their body image. After the interview, they were able to foresee how the participants would feel after looking at pictures or posts of other people. They were also able to foresee how women tend to compare their bodies to other people.
Additionally, they found that for women who wanted to lose weight, spending more time surfing the Internet drove them to pay more attention to their physical look, not just with their body but with what they wear, as well.
According to the researchers, while Facebook does not directly contribute to the development of eating disorders; it did have a negative impact on the participant's understanding of their body image.
"As experts in the field know, poor body image can gradually lead to developing an unhealthy relationship with food," said Petya Eckler of the University of Strathclyde in a press release. "The attention to physical attributes may be even more dangerous on social media than on traditional media because participants in social media are people we know. These comparisons are much more relevant and hit closer to home. Yet they may be just as unrealistic as the images we see on traditional media."
The findings of this study titled Facebook and College Women's Bodies: Social Media's Influence on Body Image and Disordered Eating will be presented during the 64th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association in Seattle, Wash.