Photoshop: How its presence in social media and advertisements harm body image //By Emily Barnes//

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by Emily Barnes1 view·Updated Nov 20, 2020
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  1. today, I'm going to be talking about Photoshop, how its
  2. presence in social media and advertisements harm body image.
  3. My thesis is that with the rise in Photoshop, in
  4. the media comes arising depression, lower self esteem, sexualization of
  5. women and perverted or impossible beauty standards, replacing reality with
  6. the digitally altered images on all social media and advertising
  7. as detrimental to society.
  8. Young women and cultural beauty standards, influencers and large companies
  9. with their wide scope of power in the media, must
  10. begin to portray riel images of really unaltered people in
  11. order to persuade their followers that true beauty is not
  12. in the untenable, altered reality they see Now.
  13. Photoshop is the altering oven image, using any form of
  14. editing software.
  15. Now let's look at this model from the company Dove.
  16. This is her face before Photoshop was used, and this
  17. is her face after Photoshop posted on a billboard for
  18. their advertisements.
  19. Now let's take a closer look.
  20. As we can see, there are drastic changes in her
  21. facial features, her eyes Ahron realistically big in this picture.
  22. Her face is much slimmer and longer, and her neck
  23. has been elongated and her face is flawlessly smoothed do
  24. these pictures look anything alike?
  25. Does this even look like the same girl now?
  26. Why is it harmful?
  27. Photoshop ing images and altering the appearances of models and
  28. influencers on social media is extremely harmful because it creates
  29. a false reality that society is exposed to constantly.
  30. It's unattainable.
  31. Standard of beauty creates depression and body dissatisfaction in young
  32. people, and it oversexualized is women's and young girls, making
  33. the ideal beauty a sexual one.
  34. Now, first of all, studies show that constant exposure to
  35. Photoshop images change standards of beauty.
  36. In this study by the American Psychological Association on the
  37. sexualization of Women, they found that girls and young women
  38. who more frequently consume or engaged with mainstream media content
  39. offers stronger endorsement of sexual stereotypes that depict women as
  40. sexual objects.
  41. They also place appearance and physical attractiveness at the center
  42. of women's value.
  43. There is a huge push in the media for a
  44. sexual beauty, it seems the media is always saying you
  45. can't be beautiful unless you show a little skin or
  46. pose a certain way.
  47. This is extremely harmful, especially to younger girls who are
  48. exposed to the media constantly.
  49. It gives young girls a flawed idea that they can
  50. only be pretty if they flaunt themselves promiscuously.
  51. It also harms cultural beauty standards because it puts huge
  52. emphasis on the physical attractiveness of women when beauty is
  53. much deeper than just on a physical level.
  54. Number two, it is extremely hard, if not impossible, to
  55. detect Photoshop in an image.
  56. This blogger writes that there are so many ways to
  57. edit your appearance both digitally and cosmetically.
  58. All of them are aimed at making flaws undetectable.
  59. The result are so riel image that is not very
  60. really at all.
  61. Photoshop has become so advanced that the images now that
  62. have been touched up look so real that no one
  63. would even have reason to doubt its authenticity.
  64. No one questions the reality of the image because no
  65. one has need Thio.
  66. It looks very riel.
  67. Therefore it must be number three.
  68. Fake reality creates an idea of unattainable beauty, causing depression
  69. and body dissatisfaction.
  70. This study by researchers Krayer England Do and iPhone pin
  71. states that numerous experimental studies have shown that body dissatisfaction
  72. was increased by viewing or reading appearance focused material or
  73. being exposed to peer messages about fitness.
  74. This is dangerous because women, girls and all of society
  75. will see so many Photoshop images from influencers and advertisements.
  76. They will see those as the ideal reality and see
  77. them as something that is attainable because it looks so
  78. real. This creates a false reality that is completely unattainable
  79. for anyone, and this is the reality that has become
  80. the cultural standard of beauty.
  81. Today number 4 95% of teams have access to some
  82. form of social media on a near daily basis.
  83. This is very concerning.
  84. This study stated that high rates of media consumption were
  85. concerning because of the widespread digital retouching of advertising imagery
  86. and how it may have negative impacts presenting unrealistically unattainable
  87. standards of beauty, her physical appearance and beauty.
  88. It also stated that digital photo retouching of advertising imagery
  89. is ubiquitous, which means it is essentially everywhere in the
  90. media and almost if not completely impossible to detect or
  91. distinguished from reality.
  92. For teenagers to be exposed to see so much fake
  93. reality, is it extremely harmful?
  94. They constantly are exposed to pressure from culture to fit
  95. into a cultural norm, and their minds air easily persuaded
  96. by what they see on social media and advertisements for
  97. the media to be presenting such unattainable beauty.
  98. It persuades young people that that is what they should
  99. be striving to achieve, that that is the only acceptable
  100. beauty. It's being everywhere in the media on Lee hammers
  101. this idea into their minds, setting it up to be
  102. utterly disappointed that they can never achieve that standard.
  103. What should we be doing?
  104. What should influencers do?
  105. Influencers and large companies reach the vast majority of people
  106. on social media because they're so well known.
  107. They have the most followers, and almost everyone knows who
  108. they are and what they're doing.
  109. Not only are they huge on social media, but the
  110. things they do are likely being covered by the news.
  111. Because of this, what they do impacts the most amount
  112. of people.
  113. They're called influencers for a reason.
  114. They influence people with what they dio.
  115. Their social platforms can be used for good or for
  116. bad, and many of them, in fact, the vast majority
  117. of them have bought into the Photoshop wave as influencers.
  118. They want to portray their best self to the millions
  119. of viewers they have.
  120. Instead, they must allow their followers to see them as
  121. they really are.
  122. Humans, humans with flaws humans that don't have impossibly flawless
  123. skin and tiny waists.
  124. They need to promote reality to their fans.
  125. They should follow in the footsteps of these influencers, such
  126. as 12 year old dancer Cassidy neighbor and 17 year
  127. old musician Caroline Romano, who are becoming strong advocator against
  128. the Photoshop wave in social media, promoting body positivity, honesty
  129. and true reality in their social platforms.
  130. They should also follow in the footsteps of large corporations
  131. like Dove and Area, who have begun to promote reality
  132. and body positivity in their advertisements.
  133. Dove has posted many short films to bring to light
  134. the falsity of Photoshop and has begun to use very
  135. little photo retouching in their ads in order to promote
  136. inclusivity and the unattainable beauty.
  137. Standard Area began using no photo editing on their models
  138. and specifically hired models of different sizes, shapes, skin colors
  139. and with different skin irregularities to promote inclusivity and body
  140. positivity. They did a study on 35 women from the
  141. ages of 18 to 23 asking them how their ads
  142. and models made the women feel.
  143. The study found that most of the women said that
  144. the advertisements made them feel happier about their own bodies.
  145. The models appeared relatable and similar to themselves and the
  146. people in their social circle.
  147. The women felt inspired to the body confidence and self
  148. acceptance that the models portrayed.
  149. And most women felt that Harry was helping to change
  150. the media landscape for the better.
  151. They thought that portrayed greater body diversity could reduce harmful
  152. appearance pressures and disordered eating among young women.
  153. If influences could portray unaltered images as reality, beauty standards
  154. would be attainable.
  155. Yeah, in conclusion, Photoshop is everywhere in the media.
  156. It creates a false reality which people are constantly consuming,
  157. changing the cultural standard of beauty to something completely unattainable.
  158. Even the models and influencers we see in the media
  159. don't look like that in real life.
  160. This causes a huge sense of dissatisfaction in one's body.
  161. Sexualized is women and causes depression.
  162. When the realization comes that no one can ever attain
  163. this beauty.
  164. Influencers have such power in the media that they must
  165. stop portraying a fake reality and instead do away with
  166. Photoshop wave and redefine beauty in society, as it should
  167. be, really and unaltered.
  168. Thank you