The Relationship Between Social Media and Womens Well-being: The Role of Self-objectification

Abstract

Social media has become a fundamental part of everyday life, frequently showcasing objectifying information and images that impact users' perceptions and behaviors. This review explores the relationship between social media use and women's well-being, focusing on how self-objectification mediates this relationship. The study delves into the role of internalization of ideal beauty standards and social comparisons as mediators between media use and self-objectification. The review categorizes specific social media selfie behaviors, including selfie-viewing, selfie-posting, selfie-editing, and selfie-investment, and analyzes their differential impacts on self-objectification and health. Using a comprehensive literature review method, the results indicate that media use, particularly frequent involvement in selfie-related activities is strongly linked to increased self-objectification and subsequent negative health outcomes. For specific activities, contradictory findings are identified regarding the impact of selfie-posting, and possible explanations are provided, including motivations, scale usage, and cultural differences.