Body
A. Methodology:
1- Description of the sample / participants: The sample consists of 35 responses with ages
that range between 15 and 20+. All of our participants are considered young, like high school or
college students, as the hypothesis mainly targets teenagers and young adults. About 80% of our
participants are males and the other 20% are females.
2- Description of the questionnaire: The survey is made up of 8 questions. The following
types of questions were used: Yes/No, Scale, Multiple choice, Checklist, and Open-ended
questions.
Questions:
I. “How many hours do you spend on social media daily?”: Scale type question
II. “Do comments of your friends impact you?”: Yes/No type question
III. “Which apps do you feel negatively affect your perception of your body?”: Checklist
type question
IV. “How often do you compare your appearance to social media influencers?”: Scale type
question
V. “Do you feel that your appearance is being judged on social media?”: Yes/No question
VI. “Does the amount of likes you receive on a post mean anything to you?”: Yes/No
question
VII. “Rank the effect of social media on your body image.”: Scale type question.
VIII. “How can you overcome the negative effects of social media on your body?”: Open-
ended question
Demographics:
I. “Email”: Open-ended question
II. “Gender”: Multiple choice question
III. “Age”: Multiple choice question
B. Findings:
1- “How many hours do you spend on social media daily?”: The majority of participants, 10
participants or about 28.6%, spend only about 3 hours daily on social media. Generally, 27
participants or about 77.2% spend 5 hours or less daily on social media, while the rest 8
participants or about 22.8% spend more than 5 hours daily on social media.
2- “Do comments of your friends impact you?”: The majority, 16 participants or about 45.7%,
chose Yes. 11 participants or about 31.4% chose Depends, and finally, 8 participants or about
22.9% chose No.
3- “Which apps do you feel negatively affect your perception of your body?”: Instagram and
Facebook both took the lead with a collective vote of 37 (20 for Instagram and 17 for Facebook)
as they contain plenty of photos, especially Instagram which is home for social media
influencers. TikTok came in third with 15 votes, WhatsApp in fourth with 10 votes, YouTube in
fifth with 9 votes, and lastly Snapchat with 7 votes.
4- “How often do you compare your appearance to social media influencers?”: Results
showed that the majority of participants (37.1%) almost do not compare themselves to social
media influencers, while 34.3% of participants can sometimes compare themselves to online
influencers. 6% of participants rarely compare themselves and the rest 11.4% always compare
themselves to social media influencers.
5- “Do you feel that your appearance is being judged on social media?”: Most of the
participants, 15 participants or about 42.9%, chose No. 13 participants or about 37.1% chose
Yes, and finally, 7 participants or about 20% chose Depends.
6- “Does the amount of likes you receive on a post mean anything to you?”: The majority, 21
participants or about 60%, chose Yes. 13 participants or about 37.1% chose No, and only 1
participant chose Depends
.
7- “Rank the effect of social media on your body image.”: The majority of participants, 11
participants or about 31.4%, think that the effect of social media on their body image is
moderate. Generally, 15 participants or about 42.8% think that the effect of social media on their
body image is negative, while the rest 9 participants or about 25.8% think that the effect of social
media on body image is positive.
8- “How can you overcome the negative effects of social media on your body?”: Participants
were pretty divided in their opinions when answering this particular question. 18 participants
supported the idea of taking a break or reducing the time spent on social media. 4 participants
said that we should all trust in ourselves and stop comparing ourselves to others.3 participants
overcame the negative effects by working out or going to the gym. Some participants who were
not affected negatively by social media were confused on how can someone get affected by
social media.