According to Meshioyes study, humans have the natural desire to emulate the characteristics of those around them, and this causes people to feel unsatisfied with how they are. Social comparison, which was also brought up in the aforementioned study, is the phenomenon wherein one assesses his or her self-worth in relation to his or her surroundings and how the people around him or her perceive them. In relation to that, a study conducted by Lewallen and Behm-Morawitz, entitled Pinterest or Thinterest?: Social Comparison and Body Image on Social Media, also used the concept mentioned earlier; the article mentioned that it has been agreed upon by feminist scholars and social science researchers that social media does indeed have the capacity to influence people and make them compare themselves to others and thus try to make themselves similar to what they see in these platforms (in the studys case, fitness boards on Pinterest were used) in different aspects such as beauty, body, etc. Additionally, based on the interview with Mrs. Angee Aspi, who is a graduate of BS Psychology in Manila Doctors College Philippines and took up an MA in Counseling at the De La Salle University and is currently a guidance counselor at Miriam College High School, media greatly affects adolescents. It influences them to prioritize it (social media) rather than school or work. Moreover, it can cause them to become sleep deprived or refrain from doing physical activities. In addition to that, social media is used by adolescents as a medium to express themselves either anonymously or through their actual identities. When other people who disagree with them start to comment offensive things, it could lead to various negative effects, and this occurrence is connected to the phenomenon that is cyberbullying.
Although, it is not only through negative comments from other people online that an individual could feel badly about themselves. Another contributor to this would be the unrealistic standards being set by the media. They hire models and celebrities and use
various editing software to produce the ideal appearance of a person. In relation to this, according to Meshioyes study, the media shows actors and actresses in such an idealized view and they are portrayed as unrealistic standards of beauty. A work that was mentioned in Meshioyes research was a meta-analysis that was conducted by Grabe, Hyde, and Ward, entitled The Role of the Media in Body Image Concerns Among Women: A Meta-Analysis of Experimental and Correlational Studies, which concluded that there is a definite correlation between womens negative perspective on their bodies and their use of media. According to the study by Grabe, Hyde, and Ward, women started to devote more of their time to making themselves look good and there was an increased rate of eating disorders. Still, the idea is that media is a primary contributor to the negative feelings people have toward their bodies. Frost mentions in her book that capitalism exploits the insecurities of consumers for them to buy their products. In fact, around $53.3 billion is earned by the dietary, cosmetics, and esthetic surgery industries together because of this (Wolf, 99; Frost, 200). Furthermore, television, a form of media, becomes a medium for individuals to see different people, which, as mentioned previously, humans have a natural tendency to emulate characteristics of those they see, this therefore greatly affects the ideas of a developing child. It is also mentioned that advertisements present an unrealistic promise of luxury or comfort. Moreover, in relation to the idea that media uses advertisements to present unrealistic promises, due to advancements in technology, corporations have to ability to specifically advertise to their target market and use different platforms such as social media to their advantage. Therefore, based on these facts from studies, surveys, and books from professionals in their respective fields, it is acceptable to say that media negatively affects the body image of adolescents through the portrayal of unrealistic standards for aesthetics.