The Beautiful and the Fit Reap the Spoils: Body Image, Electronic Media Communication, and Well-being Among Early Adolescents

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Over recent decades, social media and other forms of electronic media communication (EMC) have become an integral part of young people’s lives. Although the Internet used to be dominated by entertainment and information seeking, Web 2.0 has caused the merging of production and the consumption of content.

The creation and consumption of mediated content occur simultaneously and are performed by the same people. This process has heavily expanded the social arena of interaction to make social media and online interaction a complex phenomenon; a growing number of researchers recognize the importance of investigating how this interaction affects young people’s lives.

Previous research has shown how young people, particularly adolescents, are more likely to engage with highly visual forms of social media and electronic communication, like Snapchat and Instagram, rather than more text-based platforms. This is one of the main reasons why scholars have linked social media use to body image concerns among young people. Rather than assessing the effects of the time spent on social media, this study examines the connection between the intensity of EMC use (e.g., via Snapchat) and well-being among early adolescents. Furthermore, given the highly visual nature of early adolescents’ electronic communication forms, this study applies a conditional approach by investigating how this relationship might be conditioned by a negative perceptual body image. This research aims to examine the contingent conditions of the relationship between electronic communication and early adolescents’ well-being.

This study uses data on 1,843 early adolescents aged 12–17 years provided by the Danish Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study and ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models and measures the intensity of EMC instead of the time spent on social media.

Overall, this study finds that the intensity of EMC is positively related to well-being among early adolescents. Positive results are found when examining the intensity of communication rather than measuring the total time spent on social media or screen time. A negative perceptual body image acts as a moderator of the relationship between the intensity of EMC and well-being, whereas the positive relationship between EMC disappears under the condition of a negative body image.

 These findings provide nuance to the debates on how EMC affects young people. adolescents. By applying a moderation analysis, the results suggest that the relationship between social media and well-being is very complex and interacts with other aspects of young people’s lives.

Article details

The Beautiful and the Fit Reap the Spoils: Body Image as a Condition for the Positive Effects of Electronic Media Communication on Well-being Among Early Adolescents
Søren Christian Krogh
First Published April 25, 2021 Research Article
DOI: 10.1177/11033088211009128
From YOUNG