The contribution of social media addiction to adolescent LIFE: Social appearance anxiety

Abstract

The use of social media by adolescents, who spend about 3 hours a day on social media, is dominated by visual communication. Nowadays, appearance ideals are presented through social media platforms. Exposure to these popular ideals of appearance could cause appearance-based anxiety and adolescents to develop binge-eating behavior. This cross-sectional study was conducted to determine social appearance anxiety, social media addictions, and emotional eating behaviors of adolescents. 1363 adolescents, living in the Central Anatolian Region of Turkey, were included in the study. Data were collected with a Questionnaire form, the Social Appearance Anxiety Scale (SAAS), Social Media Addiction Scale (SMAS), and Emotional Eating Scale (EES-C). 24.4% of adolescents are social media addicts. No relationship was found between adolescents’ social appearance anxiety, social media addictions, and emotional eating behaviors. However, social appearance anxiety and social media addictions of girls, those who perceive their family income as low and who think that they are influenced by social media influencers have higher anxiety. The value of this study is that it shows that gender, low income perception, time spent on social media, being influenced by influencers, following influencers who share diet and nutrition content, and social media addiction are associated with social appearance anxiety. As a result, it is thought that social media addiction and being affected by social media influencers increase social appearance anxiety in adolescents and pose a risk in terms of adolescents’ mental health.