The Perfect Storm: A Developmental–Sociocultural Framework for the Role of Social Media in Adolescent Girls’ Body Image Concerns and Mental Health

Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review https://doi.org/10.1007/s10567-022-00404-5 The Perfect Storm: A Developmental–Sociocultural Framework for the Role of Social Media in Adolescent Girls’ Body Image Concerns and Mental Health Sophia Choukas‑Bradley1,2 · Savannah R. Roberts2 · Anne J. Maheux2 · Jacqueline Nesi3,4 Accepted: 1 July 2022 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2022 Abstract In this theoretical review paper, we provide a developmental–sociocultural framework for the role of social media (SM) in adolescent girls’ body image concerns, and in turn, depressive symptoms and disordered eating. We propose that the features of SM (e.g., idealized images of peers, quantifiable feedback) intersect with adolescent developmental factors (e.g., salience of peer relationships) and sociocultural gender socialization processes (e.g., societal over-emphasis on girls’ and women’s physical appearance) to create the “perfect storm” for exacerbating girls’ body image concerns. We argue that, ultimately, body image concerns may be a key mechanism underlying associations between adolescent girls’ SM use and mental health. In the context of proposing this framework, we provide empirical evidence for how SM may increase adolescent girls’ body image concerns through heightening their focus on (1) other people’s physical appearance (e.g., through exposure to idealized images of peers, celebrities, and SM influencers; quantifiable indicators of approval); and (2) their own appearance (e.g., through appearance-related SM consciousness; exposure to idealized self-images; encouraging over-valuing of appearance; and peer approval of photos/videos). Our framework highlights new avenues for future research on adolescent girls’ SM use and mental health, which recognize the central role of body image. Keywords Social media · Body image · Adolescence · Gender · Depression · Disordered eating Introduction Smart phones and social media are central to adolescents’ lives. In 2018, 95% of U.S. teens reported having access to a smartphone, with smartphone ownership nearly universal across gender, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic background (Anderson & Jiang, 2018a). One of the most common activities in which teens engage via smartphones * Sophia Choukas‑Bradley 1 Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, 3137 Sennott Square, 210 South Bouquet Street (Main office, 3rd floor), Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA 2 Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, 105 The Green, Newark, DE 19716, USA 3 Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, 222 Richmond St, Providence, RI 02903, USA 4 Rhode Island Hospital, 1 Hoppin St., Suite 204, Providence, RI 02903, USA is social media use; according to Common Sense Media, 70% of U.S. teenagers report using social media (SM) multiple times per day (Rideout & Robb, 2018). Rates of mental health symptoms, including depression (Keyes et al., 2019), eating disorders (Galmiche et al., 2019), and suicidal ideation and behavior (CDC, 2017) have risen among adolescents, particularly girls, in recent years. In addition, recent revelations, first reported by the Wall Street Journal (“The Facebook Files,” 2021), have called attention to social media companies’ internal research findings suggesting that their products may negatively impact the mental health of teens, and particularly teen girls. These factors have contributed to high-profile and controversial public debates regarding the role of SM use in contributing to adolescent mental health, including a series of congressional hearings and legislative proposals aiming to curb the potential negative influence of SM use on teens (Blumenthal & Blackburn, 2022). Despite conflicting findings across studies examining associations between social media use and mental health, a consensus is emerging that adolescent girls have different experiences with SM than boys. Notably, highly visual 13 Vol.:(0123456789) Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review SM—such as Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, Tik Tok, and Facebook—are especially common among adolescent girls (Anderson & Jiang, 2018a). Adolescents view highly edited images of peers, celebrities, and “influencers.” These images and videos often include thin and toned women, promoting exercise and healthy eating (Tiggemann & Zaccardo, 2018), or ultra-thin, sexually suggestive images of women encouraging weight loss (Ghaznavi & Taylor, 2015). An emerging body of work has documented associations between adolescents’ use of SM and heightened body image concerns (e.g., de Vries et al., 2016; Marengo et al., 2018; Rodgers et al., 2020) and has found higher levels of SM-related appearance concerns among girls compared to boys (e.g., ChoukasBradley et al., 2020; Nesi et al., 2021; Rodgers et al., 2020; Zimmer-Gembeck et al., 2021). Yet this work is often absent from prevailing debates about the potential harms of social media, which frequently reference oversimplified measures of “screen time” (see Granic et al., 2020) and do not take into account the unique appearance-related SM experiences of many adolescent girls. Thus, the field has lacked a unifying theoretical framework for understanding the exacerbation of body image concerns as a potential mechanism underlying associations between adolescent girls’ SM use and mental health. The development of such a framework is vital to the future of research on adolescent SM use. In this theoretical review paper, we provide an organizing framework for research on the role of SM in contributing to girls’ body image concerns, and in turn, their depressive symptoms and disordered eating. We integrate theoretical perspectives and empirical findings from developmental, clinical, and social psychology, as well as media and communication studies. Our goal is to provide a developmental–sociocultural framework that addresses why and how SM may affect the body image of adolescent girls in particular. Specifically, we propose that the features of SM (e.g., idealized images of peers, quantifiable feedback) intersect with broader developmental and social processes in adolescence (e.g., salience of peer feedback and social status, heightened self-consciousness in the form of the “imaginary audience”) and sociocultural gender socialization processes (e.g., emphasis on girls’ and women’s physical appearance) to create the “perfect storm” for exacerbating girls’ body image concerns, and for some girls, worsening their mental health. Prior theoretical reviews and empirical papers have proposed specific pathways through which SM use may increase body image concerns, yet existing publications have focused on disordered eating without addressing depressive symptoms and/or have not focused specifically on adolescent developmental considerations (see Perloff, 2014; Rodgers & Melioli, 2016; Rodgers (...truncated)