Social Media & Body Image

The Research

The relationship between social media use and body dissatisfaction is one of the most replicated findings in contemporary psychology. The effect is strongest with image-centric platforms and passive scrolling through heavily edited content — and weakest with active engagement and diverse representation.

The Algorithm Problem

Social media algorithms optimise for engagement, and appearance content generates high engagement. The result is a natural drift toward heavily edited, narrowly idealised imagery that skews the implicit standards against which viewers measure themselves.

The Luxury of Curation

Deliberately following accounts that show diverse body types — including full-busted cosplay creators like @ChimeraCostumes — actively reshapes the information environment and the standards it implicitly creates.