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full screen Research shows that the eye is drawn to images that show areas of the body that we ourselves are dissatisfied with. Photo: Getty
Social media affects our body image more than we think.
Studies with specially designed glasses reveal what the eye is drawn to when women are exposed to other women’s bodies online.
– The pressure to follow certain appearance ideals is reinforced, says psychology professor Carolina Lunde.
Every third girl or woman in Sweden feels a lot of pressure to actually change their appearance because of what they see online. The fact that they know the images are fake or AI generated doesn’t matter. This is shown by a new Nordic study commissioned by the skin care manufacturer Dove.
– That images contribute to creating ideals of beauty that women then try to strive for is nothing new. The problem with AI is that manipulated images exacerbate the more unrealistic ideals of beauty because they reinforce and idealize unattainable physical characteristics, says AI expert Anna Felländer.
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full screenCarolina Lunde, psychology professor. Photo: Photographer Johan Wingborg
The eye is drawn to body parts one dislikes about oneself
In the experiment, 40 women in the age group 18–29 years were observed using an eye tracking technology built into glasses.
As the participants scrolled through a fictional social flow, their eye movements were analyzed. Some of the images in the feed had been manipulated using AI filter apps. The result shows that you have a tendency to focus on specific body parts that you feel dissatisfied with yourself. A clear behavior was discovered where one compared oneself to the images, unconsciously. In order to gain a deeper understanding of how people thought about body image, in-depth interviews were conducted with the participants.
– The women tended to focus on the parts of the images that they are most self-conscious about. As unrealistic beauty ideals increasingly fill our social media feeds, the risk of women being negatively affected in their body image and self-image increases, says Dan Sorvik, specialist in eye tracking technology who conducted the experiment on behalf of Dove.
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fullscreen Manipulated images are predicted to become even more common on social media. If they are heavily manipulated, we often see through it, while subtly manipulated images can be difficult to detect. Photo: Dove
Psychology professor Carolina Lunde thinks that the eye movement experiment confirms the problems surrounding social media and young people.
– What was interesting about the experiment was that you look at the images that are most retouched for a shorter time because you understand that they are manipulated. It suggests that we are quick to dismiss what is too perfect and that we look longer at images with light retouching or none at all as if that is something we can actually achieve. And then those images can creep under the skin a little more, she says.
Among Swedes, 79 percent of women and 71 percent of girls in the age range 10 to 17 confirm that social media reinforces the pressure to follow certain appearance ideals. This places Sweden in third place after South Africa and Brazil.
– We need to understand the impact of which processes are underway and be more interested in young people feeling well. What characterizes social media is that it reaches a younger population and that the content is individually tailored. If you are busy or dissatisfied with your body and look for appearance-related content on social media, then you will be more and more exposed to this type of material because the algorithms control what you are looking for, says Carolina Lunde.
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full screen Special glasses were used to see how subjects reacted to different images on social media. Photo: Dove
Swedish women at the top when it comes to negative body image
The implications of AI-manipulated and AI-generated images, esp
for women, is deeply worrying, according to the experts. And at the end of 2024, the Chinese Tiktok owner banned face-changing filters for users under 18.
Lunde says that there are studies that confirm that there is a connection between consumption of social media and how you feel.
– You have to be able to critically review social media and back the tape already at school. We need to equip young people and talk about the normative ideals and how to be media critical on social media. The preventive work needs to become more systematic, she interjects.
The global study that Dove did in 2024 (“The Real State of Beauty: a global report, 2024”) shows that Swedish and Nordic women feel greater pressure to
be more beautiful than other women in the world do. The same study shows that Swedish women are at the top both when it comes to having a negative body image and being self-critical.
– The development of changing people’s self-image and body image, especially among women, is going in the wrong direction. We need to stand up and work for genuine and real beauty, Sami Dabbagh summarizes the study, on Nordic Dove.