NetGirls: The Internet, Facebook, and Body Image Concern in Adolescent Girls

The study NetGirls: The Internet, Facebook, and Body Image Concern in Adolescent Girls began by discussing body dissatisfaction among adolescent girls.  Body dissatisfaction comes primarily from media sources such as Facebook or television, and in severe cases, it can lead to eating disorders.  The study focused primarily on Australian adolescents who have turned to the internet as their primary source of media.  It referenced a few statistics, such as how “Australian and US youths spend an average of 1.5 hours online per day outside of school work.”  This study is from 2013, so it would be interesting to see any drastic changes in that number with the growing popularity of other social media such as Instagram or Twitter.  Other studies were referenced, noting their purpose: to examine the relationship between internet use and body image concerns.  The results of these previous studies showed a correlation between body image concerns and internet exposure, specifically through the use of Facebook.  The aim of the current study was to further examine the relationship between these two factors on a larger scale.  The scientists hypothesized a positive correlation would be present between Facebook usage and body image concerns.

 This study was achieved by taking a sample of high school girls with the average age being 13.7 years old, from “metropolitan and rural, public and private schools [and] a wide range of socioeconomic stautses.” The girls reported how long they spent on the internet each day excluding time for school work.  Then, they recorded which sites they spent time on (i.e. Facebook or other websites) to gage their internet exposure.  In the next section of the experiment, body image concerns were examined through the “Sociocultural Attitudes Toward Appearance Questionnaire” and by employing the “Objectified Body Consciousness Scale-Youth.” 

The results stated that the majority of girls (95.9%) used internet in their homes, with about half of the girls using the internet in their bedrooms.  The scientists found that the most favorable website was Facebook for social networking and instant messaging.  Next were the results for the relationship between internet exposure and body image concerns: internet exposure was associated with “the internalization of the thin ideal, body surveillance, and drive for thinness.”  This study found that Facebook users specifically scored “significantly higher on all indicators of body image concerns than their non-user counterparts.”  The paper ended by noting some of the limitations of the study, such as the method of data collection.  Further studies should be done to obtain more precise data and perhaps further draw the connection between internet usage and body image concerns in adolescents.