What Is the “Selfie Effect”?
On his CNN podcast “Chasing Life,” Dr. Sanjay Gupta interviewed Dr. Keneisha Sinclair-McBride – licensed clinical psychologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and Assistant Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School – who specializes in body image issues and eating disorders. As the father of three daughters, Dr. Gupta decided to “get a little vulnerable” with the professor and ask her for advice on body image and social media. She explained what she calls the “selfie effect.” Excerpts from that conversation follow:
Dr. Sinclair-McBride
A lot of young women feel like they’ve got to put out this perfect picture because you’re supposed to put out perfect aspects of your life and they know it’s not reality, but they’re giving that to other people. So we’re all just in this like feedback loop of looking at perfect pictures and perfect photos, even though we know that’s not reality. So we’re just comparing our worst days, our worst moments, our worst angles to other people’s best. And of course, you’re going to not feel great when you do that.
Dr. Gupta
When we’re talking about what we’re seeing with mental health overall, body image issues, eating disorders and the impact of social media devices, content being fed to people on a regular basis, is it too flimsy to draw a connection between all these things, or do you think it exists?
Dr. Sinclair-McBride
I think that may start out pretty innocently of like, oh, I’m going to follow this influencer’s workout routine or that person’s eating looks really healthy. Maybe I’m going to copy some of her recipes and that can be super innocuous and fun and simple. But you know, you can easily fall down a rabbit hole of more and more and more and more depending on your particular makeup. And then there’s the fact that there’s so much of people’s appearance in the digital world that is not real. Right? The filters, Photoshop, cosmetic enhancements that people have, and a lot of teenagers who are still getting used to their growing bodies are comparing themselves. Well, I don’t look like her. It’s like she doesn’t look like her either.But you don’t know that, right? Because you’re looking at her social media feed. But now you’re feeling inadequate because of what you’re seeing on your screen.
Dr. Gupta
Professor Sinclair-McBride calls this the “Selfie Effect.” What the studies have shown is that scrolling through an unlimited supply of picture perfect images and then comparing them real time to your selfies – bam! That can have a real effect on people’s moods and psychological health. And while the trend does mostly impact young girls, they are not the only ones affected. People of all ages and genders have experienced this.
Dr. Sinclair-McBride
I think sometimes young people are like, “It’s not that we don’t understand this.” They know that Photoshop exists. They use Snapchat filters, they understand it. But like if that’s all you’re seeing, it kind of distorts your lens of what’s real. If everyone’s face is smooth with no pores. If, like everyone, you know, has a particular shape and that’s all you’re seeing, now you feel inadequate.
Dr. Gupta
They know that these filters exist. They know that there’s Photoshopping and all that. And yet still they think that that becomes an ideal, even though they know it’s fake or it’s not real exactly. It’s filtered in some way. It’s still it changes what they want to aspire to be or look like.
Dr. Sinclair-McBride
Right. Like if you think about the trend lately now I think it was a couple of years ago now, like the idea of someone being goals, your goals, that person is goals. But like you don’t know what’s happening behind the scenes to make them look that way, right? Or like, you don’t know how realistic this is. Or maybe that’s just, that’s not your body type or that, you know, like there’s just so much more variety in life than just a few set ways of being. But those are the things that get the most views and the most attention. And you can just see how that would kind of change people’s perceptions.
Dr. Gupta
Has that sort of thing been there much longer than social media. I mean, you know, when I was growing up again, it was magazines and pictures of just inexplicable models. You know, they couldn’t possibly have that skin or that body type. It’s the same thing, isn’t it?
Dr. Sinclair-McBride
But it’s just so much bigger. Like, you know, there’s only there were only so many fashion magazines. And once you read that issue, you could keep it. But that’s the end of that, right? You read the whole thing, you looked at the images. That’s what it is. But now you’ve got the stuff in your phone and it’s always there. It’s always available to you. You can look at hundreds of pictures of the people that you’re interested in looking at. It just it never, never really ends. And I think that that accessibility is what feels different. We’ve always been comparing ourselves. None of these things are new, but there’s the accessibility of it all feels very different.
Dr. Gupta
And I guess the persistence, like you’re saying, it’s just always there are something you’re carrying around in your hands. Do you think that a younger person, a person whose brain is not yet fully developed, who’s continuously exposed to these types of images, what does it mean for them long term? Does it do their brains change in some way in terms of expectations?
Dr. Sinclair-McBride
If that’s what you’re seeing, it’s got to do something to your expectations of what people look like, which I think is why that like kind of tuning your feed, deciding where you’re going to put your attention, kind of creating that balance becomes super important because you don’t just have to look at one type of body on your social media. But I think that that involves having a conversation with young people to really like kind of see where their heads are around this stuff, right? Because there’s a lot that can be really affirming. But we have to like we have to look for it. We have to give our attention to it. Everybody on the internet is trying to buy your time. I talk to young people about that a lot because they don’t like to be played. So it’s important to like to like so this is this is a business, right? And that influencer, yeah, she’s doing a workout, but she also is trying to get more sponsorships. So when you see it for what it is, right, a business, I think kids can kind of take that step back and be like, okay, if you want to buy my time, I’m going to give my time to people who are standing for what I believe in.
Dr. Gupta
You know, you’re absolutely right about that. It’s funny when I’m, again talking to my girls, that was the thing that seemed to get to them the most. The idea of being played, like you say, you know, someone’s trying to take something from them – that did seem to get their attention a bit. I wonder you run a practice where you’re caring for these children, these young people, adolescents. How big a problem is this? Is there a way to contextualize this?
Dr. Sinclair-McBride
So when it comes to social media, I feel like there’s a reassurance I can offer here – that honestly, most of my patients, the things that we’re talking about, in terms of what are, what their hopes and fears are, what are the things that are increasing their anxiety and the depression. Like teenagers from 30 years ago, would resonate, it would resonate with them too. Am I going to get into college? I had an argument with my parents. I’m really anxious when I have to talk in front of class. Their lives are these like complex, rich things that have hopes and dreams and problems just as they’ve always had. So that’s good. It’s not like every kid is going to get mental health treatment because social media is, you know, ruining their life. That is definitely not the case at all.
You can listen to the entire episode on girls and social media here.
Or read more on the “selfie effect” here.