Now that social media has become a fundamental part of the way we communicate, image has become a priority. For this reason, it is very common to see creators and content creators promoting all sorts of aesthetic interventions on their profiles to achieve the desired look. that, which most similar to Instagram beauty filters: slanted eyes, thin noses, high cheekbones and sunken cheeks.
Karla Barber is well aware of the potential of networks and is one of the influencers who use them to promote the beauty model sculpted with a syringe and scalpel. Although his responsibility for promoting this type of content goes further. She is a doctor and promotes her own clinic. Despite everything, her lack of professional ethics often put her at the center of controversy and drew criticism from colleagues.
So much so that in 2019 the Spanish Society of Aesthetic Medicine, of which Barber was a member, accused her of violating the code of ethics via bureaufax. Cause? Draw a series of aesthetic interventions on your social media. A practice that violated the code by creating false needs for their own benefit.. After it was filed by the Madrid College of Physicians, the influential man left the association in outrage. What he certainly did not give up was the promotion of aesthetics. made in instagram filter.
Influencers promoting health risk procedures are not new. However, Dr. Nelida Grande, Vice President for Cosmetic Surgery of the Spanish Society of Plastic Surgery (SECPRE), points out the danger of normalizing it. “It was even superficial, and it’s still surgery,” he says in a conversation with Hipertextual.
The danger of filters that end in operation
Instagram is the public’s second favorite social network, second only to Meta’s WhatsApp, ahead of Facebook. More than 1000 million people around the world visit the platform every day. TikTok, for its part, is the favorite network of teenagers, the group that spends the most time online. As teenage girls, they devote more time to social media.. For this reason, we cannot ignore the impact of what is published in them on our habits. Especially in the case of the most vulnerable people.
Dr. José Angel Lozano, Aesthetic Plastic Surgeon and Ethicist of the Spanish Association for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (AECEP), confirms: hypertext what “Social pressure to be perfect means that the influx of teenagers to our consultations is increasing every day”. This expert states that “Aesthetic surgery interventions in minors account for 1.7% of those performed in the country”. A situation with many dangers.
Hazards that do not exclusively affect minors, although in these cases they may be more serious. A few months ago, without going any further, the death of Silvia Idalia, a young woman who was left in a coma due to a serious infection after a triple cosmetic surgery at the European Center for Medicine and Aesthetics (CEME) in Madrid, was announced.
very negative impact
In the same center, the influential personality Mar Torres underwent surgery. But she was luckier. On the same day he was able to return home and the operation was free for him to promote the clinic and the procedure on his social media. In his case, it was a bichectomy, an intervention that removes the natural fat from the cheeks.
This operation, along with other operations on the face, has become trendy in recent years as a result of the rise of social media beauty filters.. According to AECEP, rhinoplasty tops the list of the most requested procedures, replacing traditional breast augmentation. And, since 2020, facelift and blepharoplasty, eyelid correction, occupy the second and third places.
But this obsession with perfecting smaller and smaller parts of our body and especially our face can have serious psychological consequences. Jedet, famous influencer and TV series actress Poison, admitted in an interview: “I’m afraid to upload my photo without photoshop.”. Although he does not hide the fact that he underwent 13 operations, he calls his concern for beauty a prison.
Dr. Isabel Moreno, President of the Spanish Association for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (AECEP), sounded the alarm some time ago. In recent years, more and more patients come to him for surgery and show him their photo with Instagram filters. This now-everyday scene is linked to a phenomenon known as “Snapchat dysmorphia,” though it can be extended to other platforms like TikTok or Instagram. A concept that was coined to define bodily discontent that arose among young people as a result of the popularization of social media filters.
Consequences of “Snapchat dysmorphia”
Angela Ruiz-Larrea, a psychologist who specializes in gender and violence, defines it more as “in frustration at not achieving the idealized image of oneself projected by the filter this platform and become obsessed with achieving that image.” For her, young people, and especially women, are the most vulnerable to this kind of phenomena.
As for the younger generation, those who grew up in social networks, “the development of their own identity and self-image is closely linked to the image they project online”. The further away from reality, the more complex they are generated and, therefore, the greater the need for surgical intervention in the body in order to adapt it to the high expectations placed by these platforms. “Feelings of ‘inconsistency’ can cause a lot of anxiety when confronted with the real world,” explains Ruiz-Larrea.
In girls and young women, it increases. In her case, she points out, “there is not only more demand in terms of beauty, but also in terms of objectification and hypersexualization.” Something can be seen in the more suggestive types of photos posted on social media.
Girls “learn the idea that their personal worth is based on their looks and sexual availability, so attention is overly focused on the image they project onto others“. “This can lead to many psychological problems related to the body and self-image, such as dysmorphia, as well as eating disorders,” concludes Ruiz-Larrea.
Instagram at the center of the scandal
But “Snapchat dysmorphia” goes beyond this social network. This is a widespread phenomenon with extremely negative health consequences for the most vulnerable groups of the population. Something Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has known for a long time.
newspaper last year Wall Street Journal had access to some internal technology documents, tested the danger of one of its main platforms: Instagram. This is a study by Meta itself that examines the impact of social networking on adolescent mental health.
According to data obtained by Meta on Instagram, more than 40% of young people said that the social network makes them feel “unattractive”. In the specific case of teenage girls, the documents showed that 32% of them became less comfortable with their bodies because of Instagram. In addition, the research team found that teens wanted to spend less time on Instagram but couldn’t. They felt the social pressure that forced them to constantly be in the social network.
An internal company study concluded that Instagram exacerbates body image issues for one in three teenage girls. Despite the seriousness of the situation, the Meta decided not to go public with their investigation. While its CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that the company’s research has shown that “using social media to connect with others can have a positive impact on young people’s mental health.”
Responsible, thoughtful and well-informed operations
Disinformation is a phenomenon that is on the agenda. Nonetheless, platforms cannot continue to shirk responsibility regarding the right to truthful information. Due to what this brings to us as a society, we must stop, on the one hand, this trend towards the disappearance of critical thinking, and, on the other hand, the spread and normalization of increasingly artificial and pornographic images. The health of our teenagers is at risk.
In addition to the commitment to adopting one’s own image and promoting more realistic and natural bodies, accredited professionals should be consulted before any procedure. They must ensure that their patients are mature enough to ask for an intervention, that they understand the risks associated with it, and that they have all the necessary information.
As Dr. Nelida Grande, Vice President of SECPRE points out: “You have to be strict, not make surgery frivolous and, above all, correctly and clearly communicate what can really be achieved without filters.” The reverse can be fatal.
Source: Hiper Textual
