Skönhetsideal på sociala medier : En kvantitativ studie om hur unga vuxna påverkas av skönhetsideal

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study was to find out if young adults, more specified in the ages between 15-30 years old, are affected by beauty ideals on social media and if so, how they are affected. Furthermore, the study wanted to find out if there are any gender differences and age differences in the matter, and how often an individual person publishes content on social media. The theoretical frameworks we applied and used as support was Uses and gratification theory, Social cognitive theory and Sociocultural perspective on body image. We also applied the research on “Why do people use social media?”. In order to find out the purpose of the study and get statistics we created and used a quantitative poll survey. The survey was made with Google Forms and contained 21 variables with closed-ended questions. A random sample was applied through publishing the survey on Facebook. A total of 146 people answered the survey. To get statistics through diagrams we used Google Forms as well as SPSS Statistics. For example, Google Forms introduced how many out of our total target audience who felt themselves being affected by beauty ideals on social media meanwhile SPSS Statistics introduced results where different variables were merged, e.g. comparing genders and influence of beauty ideals.   The survey results stated that women are affected by social media to a greater extent than men are. According to our results, women generally have a lower self-esteem than men do, and they are also more prone to comparing themselves with others. They also experience a stronger self-esteem when posting on social media. In opposite, according to the survey results, men generally have a higher self-esteem and are less affected by social media than women are. The categories “Body” and “Exercise/diet” is a common denominator for both men and women, as both genders experience themself being most affected by them. However, women proved to be more affected in these categories than men. It was furthermore very common with both genders to be affected both positively as well as negatively by social media.   To summarize, the results we got from the analysis of our empirical material agrees well with the theoretical frameworks we used and the research we found. For instance, the theories bring up that girls from an early age are exposed by unrealistic ideals, which can explain our results.