Sophie Horton
Social media shows unrealistic body types of women, and causes young women to be dissatisfied with their own bodies. Changes need to be made in order to address this problem, such as utilizing arts and science in a collaborative way. Education through art and science can help us bring awareness to this problem, and eventually fix this problem.
All of us are familiar with social media, unless you’re living under a rock. Social media is apart of almost all of our lives. You may be familiar with Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Linton, and Pinterest. They are all forms of media that people can use to post and share things. Because so many people are on social media, people share images of themselves looking their best. People won’t put out a certain image of themselves, they put out all their good and fun moments to create an ideal image of themselves. But people looking at that think that’s how their lives really are and compare their lives to it. And the pictures with beautiful women get a lot of attention and can leave people who see those images dissatisfied with themselves and their bodies. Particularly women are targeted in social media, because they are on it more than men. In the recent article “Social Media Effects on Young Women’s Body Image Concerns: Theoretical Perspectives and an Agenda for Research” by Richard M. Perloff, he quotes “18-19 year-olds who use the Internet are the most likely of any demographic group to use a social networking site; importantly, women are more likely than men to tune into these sites” (qtd. In Perloff 364). Since women are the biggest majority of people on social networking sites, they are the most affected by it. Going on social media you see images of women who look “ideal”, and girls seeing those images think that’s what a women should look like. A lot of these women on social media are very thin, or are curvaceous with a small waist. These body types are unrealistic, but girls seeing these images don’t think so. As people we need to put a stop to women feeling bad about their image.
Art is a way we can help raise awareness to women body image issues due to social media. Art is a creative outlet that you can do so much with, and is important even though people don’t always think of it being important. Art opens our minds to so much more than just what’s in front of us. Accomplished performer Yo-Yo-Ma who wrote “Necessary Edges: Arts, Empathy, and Education” he says, “The arts teach us that there is something that connects us all and is bigger than each of us. In both places it is a matter of equilibrium. Of centering the ego at the right point of balance between the individual and the community” (Ma). Not everyone is alone in feeling bad about themselves because of social media. And art is a way we’re able to raise awareness. Especially using social media to post art that talks about social media’s impact on women. As a user of social media its not uncommon to see art posted to make a point of something.
Another way we can raise awareness of the effect of social media is through science. Statistics is mathematical part of science, it touches on collection, analysis, and explanation of data. When people see the statistics of something it makes them feel like they’re not alone. Posting to social media the statistics of women affected by social media will show young women how many people feel the same way as they do. Young women will not go on their own time to look up this data, so posting it to social media is an effective way to raise awareness of the number of women who feel the same way they do. Science is more than just the typical experiments, and data collection. Writer Jonah Lehrer who wrote “The Future of Science…Is Art?,” explores science more, and gives it a different perspective. He mentions in his article, “The trajectory of science has proven to be a little more complicated. The more we know about reality-about its quantum mechanics and neutral origins-the more palpable its paradoxes become” (Lehrer). Science just like art, can open people’s minds. Science gives people a more technical response. That’s why together art and science can help raise awareness of the negative response of social media to women.
We all seek the need for validation, and acceptance. That’s why social media’s negative effects on women have gotten so severe. Art and science an effective way to show young women that this problem of body image issues is not just felt by them. Art and Science can open peoples minds by the way art lets people interpret things from a personal perspective. And science lays out facts on the issue to show people that they are not alone, which is very important. Together these two educational tools are a super power to fight, and show young women, they are not alone.
Sophie your essay is strong so far and I enjoyed reading it. You have a slid thesis but you just need to connect your main points to it better. Your structure flows nicely and your topics have a lot of potential but you should elaborate further on how you plan to meld art and science to solve your specific issue and other issues in general. If you were told you had to solve this issue yourself how would you do it? Also, dive deeper into the specific effects of social media on how women feel. Maybe a story you know or a personal anecdote? You have a great base for your essay your ideas just need expanding and your arguments could be defended more. I think your essay has great potential for when we introduce the multimodal elements, perhaps you could have real posts as examples of what you see as the issue.
