Communications in Humanities Research ISSN: 2753-7072
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Research Article

How Do Social Media Affect Social Appearance Anxiety of Chinese High School Students —Take Little Red Book for an Example

Yantong ChenHangzhou Foreign Language School*

* Corresponding author: [email protected]

Abstract

As technology popularizes and advances by leaps and bounds, social media has become an increasing part of teenagers’ lives. Social media use can shape mentality and change people's behavior, which may lead to social appearance anxiety. Adolescents are exposed to messages containing certain characteristics when browsing social networks, such as the tendency of people to show their relatively perfect body image on social media, producing low self-esteem and lack of self-confidence issues. Individuals with social appearance anxiety typically hold negative views of their bodies and appearance, and they often try to hide features or body parts that they dislike. Combining with Social Comparison Theory, people tend to compare themselves to other people, including comparing their looks to those celebrities we see on social media platforms. Such a trend is particularly pronounced and on the rise among adolescent females. Drawing on Self-Objectification Theory, the research examines how social media affects the level of Chinese female high school students' social appearance anxiety, using Little Red Book, a common social media used by the Chinese youth population, as an example. The paper uses online case study of self-reports and online questionnaire survey to analyze the present days social appearance anxiety issue among Chinese high school students in the society. The context of this essay includes the cause and effect of social appearance anxiety due to social media; correlation studies and analyses of appearance concerns are relevant to online activities, especially selfies related that receive through social media.

Keywords: social appearance anxiety; social media; social comparison; self-objectification; body image
Published: July 31, 2024
DOI: 10.54254/2753-7064/38/20240030
Volume: CHR Vol.38
pp. 144-152
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