Effects of Unrealistic Images on Social Media Among Teenagers

Research Proposal
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Research Proposal
Introduction
Social media refers to an aspect of electronic communication where users are capable of creating online communities to share content such as information or personal messages. One of the major reasons for engagement in communication between individuals' family and friends is the desire to retrieve information (Anderson & Jiang, 2018). Teenage life is marred with various spoken alongside unspoken expectations, realizations, and rationalizations on a daily basis. Such different challenges as encountered by the teenagers make their lives hard at various stages. The nature of complexity within the teenager's world requires some attention from the adult perspective.
Teenagers worldwide struggle with the need to fit and move along with their peers, which at times leads to spill-over of the desires into an obsessive drive to appear "perfect." Homayoun (2019) provides insight into the digital world's impact alongside social media on teenagers and the preferable tactics and solutions that foster the balance between digital consumption alongside personal well-being.
One of the crucial areas of concern entails the impact of social media on teenagers' emotional alongside physical health globally. There has been evidence research on social media's long-term impact on teenagers' mental and emotional domains. Notably, adolescents who spend significant time on social media are known to develop unrealistic body image expectations. Such impact is prevalent particularly amongst young girls, for instance, in a study conducted by (Brown 2014), 20% of the 9-year-old and 40% of the 14-year-olds ascend to the fact that they desired to lose weight. The excessive use of skinny models is not a new phenomenon since the saturation of such images in our daily lives provides a fairly current development (Anderson & Jiang, 2018).
The current rise in photo media alongside the ubiquitous photoshopping and the aspect of airbrushing of celebrities leave teenagers feeling more under pressure than before in a quest to look perfect. Further, some applications provide image filters alongside editing of photo features that teenagers can apply to erase any form of perceived flaws entirely. Consequently, the various un-retouched photos quickly become stale, therefore, only adds to the current confusion on unrealistic beauty standards.
Problem statement
The use of social media is classified broadly under participation, content search, gaming, and sharing and consumption (Bolton et al., 2013). Contribution is the act whereby individuals post the content they create while searching refers to the act of seeking out already created content. Greenwood, Perrin, & Duggan (2016) assert that approximately 79% of those using the internet were connected to Facebook, close to 32% use Instagram, LinkedIn 30%, and approximately 24% Twitter. Over 90% of Americans were considered users of the internet in the year 2016, with the usage rates increasing over the past decade.
There is the general agreement that the media portrays various unrealistic standards of excellence and beauty standards. The inclination has become so universal that it is adopted by a significant percentage...