Research has found that 1/3 of girls and young women will not post selfies online without using a filter or app to change their appearance. A similar proportion have also deleted photos if they didn’t get enough “likes” or comments.
The research by Girlguides association also found that 39% of the 1,473 young people aged 11-21 said they felt upset that they could not look the same in real life as they did online. More and more young people are using filters and enhancing apps such as facetune to look like the instagram model beauty standard.
At wish we have also seen an increase in young people not wanting to remove their Covid-19 masks as it “covers everything about my face I don’t like”. With masks in person and filters through social media, how often are young people seeing each others and their own faces? What further impact could this have on youth self esteem?
Low self esteem can lead young people to; not value themselves as a person, be unable to recognise strengths and positives, be unkind to themselves, not believe they deserve good things or happiness, blame themselves unfairly, be unable to try new things and in some cases can lead to depression or anxiety.
Young People we asked said: “They distort my perception of what I look like and I don’t need that!”
“If i want to be seen, I want to be SEEN for real!”
“They make me feel bad about my nose and face shape.”
“Because they’re made for white people and make my lips look ridiculous when i already have big lips LOL.”
” They push ideals like big lips, round eyes etc when all features are beautiful.” “They make me feel like trash”. “They trigger my facial dysmorphia so I avoid them.” “I’m prettier without it.”
We’ve launched our campaign #myfaceisgoodenough to promote natural faces without the beauty standards that filters create. We want to encourage all young people to feel confident with the face they present to the world.
Try and think about why you use a filter, maybe pluck up the courage to post without, encourage others to do the same! YOUR FACE IS ENOUGH!