It’s finally happened.
A lawsuit has been filed against social media giant Meta in the United States District Court, alleging, among other things, that its use of visual features promotes eating disorders and body dysmorphia in youth, thereby causing significant physical and mental harm.
Despite Meta’s previous reassurances its social media platforms are suitable for young users and designed to promote their well-being, the lawsuit states that Meta has knowingly continued to develop and implement features like face and body manipulation filters, which induce addictive and compulsive social media use.
Brought by 41 American states and the District of Washington D.C., the Meta lawsuit partly resulted from an investigation into whistleblower Frances Haugen’s claims in 2021. The former Facebook employee leaked thousands of documents revealing the tech company was putting profits before users, including that Meta was aware of the risks that Instagram posed to the health of young girls. Disturbingly, internal research had revealed that 13.5% of teen girls said Instagram worsened their suicidal thoughts while 17% said it contributed to their eating disorders.
Sadly, these results are no surprise to those who know all too well the delirium one feels after scrolling the flawless, perfect faces (read: airbrushed) of others on Instagram. Hundreds of filters are available through the online platform to transform your look with the swipe of a button, blurring the line between reality and fantasy in a virtual world where self-image is everything.
But as we’ve feared, this quest for unattainable beauty comes at a price and begins in adolescence.
Childhood behaviour commentator Tanith Carey explains that social media has the addictive power to turn young girls into miniature PR agents for their own images, where they tell their stories through carefully managed, airbrushed picture opportunities. Carey says that when young girls begin to retouch their photos, “their brains do not always compute that others are doing it too. They just think that everyone is skinnier and more gorgeous than them”.
Carey’s sentiments are echoed in a 2022 Pew Research survey, which revealed that in the United States, of the 9% of teens who saw their experiences with social media as primarily negative, 22% said the potential adverse effects on their mental health were the main reason why they felt this way. As one participant articulated, her feelings towards social media included “pressure, comparing myself, cyberbullying, stuck in a loop of social media, having an empty-feeling effect after use, going down rabbit holes of comparing myself, overwhelming.”
It’s also well-documented how social media has led to the homogenisation of Western beauty standards. In 2018, Dr Tijon Esho, a medical doctor in the United Kingdom, noticed an uptake in patients seeking cosmetic procedures to look like their digitally filtered appearances, naming this affliction’ Snapchat dysmorphia’.
The year after, in a thought-provoking piece for The New Yorker, cultural commentator Jia Tolentino contemplated how “social media, FaceTune, and plastic surgery had created a single, cyborgian look”, dubbing this new beauty ideal ‘Instagram Face’.
Tolentino described the artificially manufactured aesthetic as “a young face, of course, with poreless skin and plump, high cheekbones. It has catlike eyes and long, cartoonish lashes; it has a small, neat nose and full, lush lips. It looks at you coyly but blankly, as if its owner has taken half a Klonopin and is considering asking you for a private-jet ride to Coachella. The face is distinctly white but ambiguously ethnic—it suggests a National Geographic composite illustrating what Americans will look like in 2050, if every American of the future were to be a direct descendant of Kim Kardashian West, Bella Hadid, Emily Ratajkowski, and Kendall Jenner (who looks exactly like Emily Ratajkowski).”
Earlier this year, there was a glimmer of hope when beauty media platform Allure declared that ‘Instagram Face’ had fallen out of favour with ‘filler fatigue’ taking its place as the leading injectables trend. Around this time, there was an increase in reports of celebrities who were dissolving their fillers, instead turning to procedures like buccal fat removal to achieve more ‘natural-looking’ results.
However, the truth is that regardless of which beauty aesthetic is trending, the pressure to conform remains in the form of newer yet equally unattainable standards. We’re trapped in a continuous loop where we’re influenced by the inflated images of others online while feeling worse about our own.
As we await the outcome of the Meta lawsuit, one thing is clear to me: external intervention is necessary. The case may even catalyse legislation that better regulates social media platforms and safeguards users from psychological manipulation and harm.
For now, our best defence against the social media giants is to resist their comparison trap and the temptation to distort our virtual identities. After all, we are worth far more than how we are perceived online or how many likes we receive on Instagram.
