[beholder3]

I think the issue is the number of bullies you can get via internet.

In the offline world at worst you'd physically pass a group of five bullies who'd say rude things to you because of your looks and you could accept this since it was just those five.

Now in an instant you can have 300 kids online mob you in an instant for some photo posted, leaving the impression "everyone" is against you. Far less likely to show resistance.

The internet is a huge stage and kids climb on it. Sadly the audience is anonymous and not very civilized with big numbers of trolls, haters and bullies.

On stage situations can be very difficult to manage even for grown up people, when there is overwhelming negative feedback.

[Rondec]

A million years of having teens in the classroom tells me they are far more vulnerable than you apparently believe.

I'm not saying there aren't tons of danger in social media for teens. I just don't think snap chat filters are causing some deeper issue or that this is particularly different from anything that has been going on for a long time. People are always trying to come up with reasons why today's generations are worse off than their own because of the internet, but I guess I don't really buy most of that. Bullying is bad on the internet. It is worse in school. I have experienced it when I was in high school and it was terrible, but I have a hard time linking these sorts of filters to that for most people involved.

[ThorSanchez]

This seems overblown in typical internet click-bait fashion.

People have been modifying their self-image for thousands of years (and probably tens of thousands of years given that humans have been using pigments for at least 75,000 years). Cosmetics are both ancient and universal. And a good percentage of cultures dating back to antiquity even accept and promote permanent self-modifications such as piercings, tattoos, and even ritual scarring. Are all those people wrong?

Far from social media creating selfie-harm, it's offered a fabulous new set of tools for manipulation of self-image. These tools are relatively inexpensive (compared to cosmetics), relatively temporary (compared to tattoos) and hyper-creative (compared to anything). What's not to love about that? Rather than being examples of a negative body dysmorphic disorder, many of these SnapChat filter users are examples of positive body polymorphphilia (seeking many different body forms for self-expression). They are playing! It's the hand-wringing psychobabblers that pathologize it and turn something positive and playful into something negative and shameful.

No doubt there have been, are, and always will be a small percent of individuals who self-modify for negative reasons. But rather than stigmatize/control/ban something that many enjoy for fun, it's better to help the minority of abusers who would just find other outlets for their problems if selfie filters weren't around.

A non-trivial part of the internet is devoted to remarking how everything was pretty great in whatever year the author was 18, but has totally gone to hell since. Especially those millennials. Can't believe the stupid things they're doing these days. It's some basic part of human nature to think new fads are far worse than what we did at that age.

I'm also a baseball fan and there's no shortage of people who talk about how baseball peaked when they were teenagers, and has been in steady decline since. You can find similar articles in newspaper archives from as far back as the 1800s. "It's a shame we'll never get back to the legendary quality of play we saw in the heroic 1870s. Here in the 1890s it's all about making money and goofing off."

[Rondec]

I think the issue is the number of bullies you can get via internet.

In the offline world at worst you'd physically pass a group of five bullies who'd say rude things to you because of your looks and you could accept this since it was just those five.

Now in an instant you can have 300 kids online mob you in an instant for some photo posted, leaving the impression "everyone" is against you. Far less likely to show resistance.

The internet is a huge stage and kids climb on it. Sadly the audience is anonymous and not very civilized with big numbers of trolls, haters and bullies.

On stage situations can be very difficult to manage even for grown up people, when there is overwhelming negative feedback.

There are lots of dangers on the internet, even for older, more well put together individuals than we are talking about. But the article isn't talking about internet trolling or cyber bullying. It is only talking about whether teens are changing their views of beauty because of photo filters that are available on Instagram and Snapchat. People have always tried to look as beautiful as they can in photos or on screen. It is why there are billions of dollars spent on make up. It is why "touching up" images has existed since the advent of photography -- and frankly I don't think you'll find many paintings of royalty from the Middle Ages that show pox marks or acne and probably many of them were heavier than it appears in their paintings too.

The image of "ideal beauty" changes with the era, but teens and young adults in every era want to be as close to that ideal as they can be -- regardless of the internet and social media.

[ThorSanchez]

There are lots of dangers on the internet, even for older, more well put together individuals than we are talking about. But the article isn't talking about internet trolling or cyber bullying. It is only talking about whether teens are changing their views of beauty because of photo filters that are available on Instagram and Snapchat. People have always tried to look as beautiful as they can in photos or on screen. It is why there are billions of dollars spent on make up. It is why "touching up" images has existed since the advent of photography -- and frankly I don't think you'll find many paintings of royalty from the Middle Ages that show pox marks or acne and probably many of them were heavier than it appears in their paintings too.

The image of "ideal beauty" changes with the era, but teens and young adults in every era want to be as close to that ideal as they can be -- regardless of the internet and social media.

Wasn't the Instagram filter of the 1960s and 70s called a soft-focus portrait lens?

[mee]

I'm not saying there aren't tons of danger in social media for teens. I just don't think snap chat filters are causing some deeper issue or that this is particularly different from anything that has been going on for a long time. People are always trying to come up with reasons why today's generations are worse off than their own because of the internet, but I guess I don't really buy most of that. Bullying is bad on the internet. It is worse in school. I have experienced it when I was in high school and it was terrible, but I have a hard time linking these sorts of filters to that for most people involved.

Have you seen it online? I've seen a lot of dark things online.. kids can be ugly, extra ugly when they can hide behind a keyboard and screen.

One would be too many.. but many more than one have taken their life to bullying online. I think maybe you have difficulty in relating coming from an older generation before the internet?


Of course you can't get beaten physically online, but bruises and bones heal. Get enough mental garbage hurled your way and it can alter you for decades.. or life. Remember the human brain is still developing through teen years.. and teens are trying to find their place in society. Both in their peer groups and who they are as a person in general.


The bigger issue with snapchat and other photoshopery filters is kids, especially teens, use it to drive a false image of who they are online. Some don't just post a stylized image.. but a whole lifestyle and person. Fronting an image. It is almost like a second life in a way. Tons of that on instagram and facebook..


20 or 25 years ago before the internet kids may have invented an image around their friends or at the mall on weekends. But usually they just took a view and tried to live that. You hung out with a group that had a particular image. Today a lot of kids live in a fake, online world looking for approval through others in the form of 'likes' and 'followers'. Between online/mob bullying, fake life image, mass outward approval, and other problems, kids aren't really socializing like they used to.


Less hanging out at the mall or at school events, more continually glued to the internet to see how many people liked their selfies to give their life value. The fact that teens are stylizing their images to some freakish, unobtainable look tells me it really is out of hand. It is like someone who is underweight saying they're fat and trying to get even thinner. Their baseline is off in a harmful place.

[sherrvonne]

Have you seen it online? I've seen a lot of dark things online.. kids can be ugly, extra ugly when they can hide behind a keyboard and screen.

One would be too many.. but many more than one have taken their life to bullying online. I think maybe you have difficulty in relating coming from an older generation before the internet?


Of course you can't get beaten physically online, but bruises and bones heal. Get enough mental garbage hurled your way and it can alter you for decades.. or life. Remember the human brain is still developing through teen years.. and teens are trying to find their place in society. Both in their peer groups and who they are as a person in general.


The bigger issue with snapchat and other photoshopery filters is kids, especially teens, use it to drive a false image of who they are online. Some don't just post a stylized image.. but a whole lifestyle and person. Fronting an image. It is almost like a second life in a way. Tons of that on instagram and facebook..


20 or 25 years ago before the internet kids may have invented an image around their friends or at the mall on weekends. But usually they just took a view and tried to live that. You hung out with a group that had a particular image. Today a lot of kids live in a fake, online world looking for approval through others in the form of 'likes' and 'followers'. Between online/mob bullying, fake life image, mass outward approval, and other problems, kids aren't really socializing like they used to.


Less hanging out at the mall or at school events, more continually glued to the internet to see how many people liked their selfies to give their life value. The fact that teens are stylizing their images to some freakish, unobtainable look tells me it really is out of hand. It is like someone who is underweight saying they're fat and trying to get even thinner. Their baseline is off in a harmful place.

I personally dealt with this when one of my grandchildren was placed in my care. The preteen child’s social media usage was off the wall and unmonitored. The child was trying to emulate a singing star who had much altering surgery and makeup and who used vulgar language and didn’t know that most females wore clothes that covered them. Yes very much trying to put their self on different social medias with filtered looks and not eating for days to be painfully thin is harmful physically and mentally. The worst part was the 300...
Let me type that again... over 300 followers on the child’s one social media, 300 persons none of whom were family members or school friends. One day my underage grandchild, who I had 95% cut off the internet usage because of this, sneaked on my iPad and got on their chat site... and forgot to sign out. �� the stuff this person was messaging was extremely adult content. I texted back and said...”EXCUSE ME PERVE?” “Do you realize you are texting an underage child?” (Well I know he did) And he proceeded to cuss me out in horrible words. And I reported them and reported it to the police and social workers. So yes, I truly believe that children don’t need to be putting themselves out there on social media made up like adults because it has the possibility of drawing bad people. My grandchild had no interest in making real live friends or having conversation with people sitting in the same room. It was all about what 300 strangers ‘liked’. That’s just messed up!

[Shenloanne]

Children's brains are not the same as adult brains. Developmental changes that impact judgement and ability to anticipate really do not stabilize until ~25. This is why children are not able to consent until 18 (and even then ....) despite the online stupidity of setting it at 13.

I read recently in a book on gentle discipline that a teenagers brain is a ferrari engine in a minis body. It's spot on.