Question
Does Instagram put pressure on young, British women aged 13-20 on wearing less, more revealing clothes for “likes”?
Introduction
Instagram is a smartphone app which allows users to “follow” their friends, family and celebrities and post pictures for their “followers” to see. Research around the psychological effect of Instagram often finds the app produces a negative impact on the user. Lee and Park (2017) believe users are more likely to receive likes if they post sexual pictures of themselves and due to the increased attention, users tend to use Instagram more often to boost their self-esteem. However, Vogel (2014) argues that people who frequently post on Instagram has lower their self-esteem. Therefore, this research plan will explore the issues of today’s society focusing on why young, British women are posting these photos, who “likes” these posts and are these women feeling pressured into wearing less, more revealing clothes.
Research Aim
The aim of this research is to find out if young British women wear less and more revealing clothes would they receive more “likes” and if so, whether they feel obliged and pressured into wearing these specific clothes to feel accepted and to boost their self-esteem.
Research Objectives
To compare user’s “likes” on posts - whether it differs when they post more ‘modest’ photos compared to revealingTo explore user’s intentions on why they post these photosTo identify if there is a pattern between the amount of revealing photos a user post as to how many follower’s she has
Literature Review
After exploring relevant literature in order to help draw this question to a close, a few things have been considered. The literature has been categorised in order to give a better understanding.
Content
1. What is Instagram?
2. Why are young adults the predominant users of Instagram?
3. How do you get the most“likes” on an Instagram post?
1. What is Instagram?
Instagram, founded in October 2010, is one of the biggest social networking sites around with over 25,000 users signing up on the day it was launched (Instagram, 2010). It differentiates against all of the other sites as it has created a new method of communication through the use pictures which can then also be shared on other social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter (Stec, 2015). Users are able to express themselves through the use of photography unlike Twitter where it has always been about users expressing themselves through a limited number of characters. With over one billion monthly active users in June 2018 (Statistica 2018) it is obvious that this app is growing in popularity and is used daily by millions of people around the world.
Ferwerda and Tkalcic (2018) believe that they can establish an Instagram user’s personality trait just by looking through the content of a user’s Instagram page. This is could be one of the reasons why Instagram is so successful as people enjoy posting about their lives in order for them to look good and interesting to their followers. User’s may also gain an ego boost as they feel they can show off what they have to their followers and when they receive likes for these posts then it builds the user’s confidence which may encourage them to post more often.
2. Why are young adults the predominant users of Instagram?
According to Huang and Su (2018), more than 70% of people worldwide between the ages of 12- 24 (otherwise known as ‘Generation Z’) who have smartphones are Instagram users which is not surprising as they have been growing up in correlation with the development of new technologies. Since smartphones are so current and are now seen as a necessity (Canaria et al. 2018), teenagers and young adults may feel disadvantaged and left out if they do not own one as they are surrounded by people who are constantly connecting using social media on their smartphones. Older generations may tend to not feel so deprived of not owning a smartphone as they have never had the need or use to own one.
Facebook IQ commissioned culture experts Crowd DNA in order to do a study of people and in result of this they later announced, “Instagram is a place where teens and adults go to discover what’s new and what’s next” (2014). However, despite what Facebook say, theorists believe that young adults use Instagram as a coping mechanism and a self-esteem boost especially in women. “In general, females are more likely than males to experience stress when endeavouring to meet unrealistic appearance goals” (Bordo, 2004). Young women and teenagers who follow their celebrity idols on Instagram may see that they get so many likes for their body image and these posts will often be labelled by the media as beautiful and sexy.
These body images are often fake and are due to plastic surgery which gives young women an unrealistic expectation on what is seen as beautiful. Along with this, celebrities are often sexualised in order to draw the most attention to themselves and the less clothes they wear, the more likely they’ll get a reaction. This may make young women wear less clothes in order feel beautiful and sexy and to receive more male attention. McAndrew and Jeong (2012) believe that among adolescents and teenagers, females are more insecure about their appearance on social media which could be due to the start of puberty where their bodies are changing and start to feel societal pressure.
Caspi (2000) suggests that girls are especially careful of what they look like and how beautiful they are compared to others which helps them develop their identities. If young women think that a celebrity is getting thousands of likes over a provocative image of themselves or even just sees their peers, then this may lead young women to follow hoping that they will get the same response. This may also make an identity of themselves to their school/work friends.
3. How do you get the most “likes” on Instagram?
A popular website called ‘Babe.net’ has over a million followers on Facebook and between 3-5 million readers a month according to the founder Eleni Mitzali. It is predominately aimed at school kids which is evident from the home page “Does your school have a messed-up dress code?”. After reading an article on their website called ‘How to get more likes on Instagram’ it was listed that they should “Post sexy photos or thirst traps” (2018). This shows how young women still in school are becoming influenced by websites to dress “sexy” in order to get more Instagram likes which also gives an indication that students will be posting provocative posts to receive more likes.
Chantel Jeffries, an Instagram model claimed she would take as many as 20 photos and would go back and select the first one she took. This shows how precise and perfect a picture would have to be before it was posted online to show her followers. When speaking about taking photos for Khloe Kardashian’s Instagram she said, "I always love her outfits because she knows how to dress for someone that's curvy”. As many young followers will see Khloe Kardashian’s posts, it creates an unrealistic body type in their heads and make them believe that curves are sexy and beautiful. Khloe’s followers may try and become more like her, posing in seductive clothing for “likes”.
Research Method
The majority of methods used by the previous researchers are quantitative with surveys being the most common and efficient method. Park and Lee (2017) used a different quantitative method by analysing the amount of “likes” a post gets in order to establish a pattern between the number of sexual images posted compared to the social engagement however, it was proven that this method was not reliable as a pattern wasn’t clear due to such a wide age range.
Ferwerda and Tkalcic’s (2018) surveys filtered out unwanted and fake entries through the use of control questions. This allowed the research responses to be as accurate as possible as well as more time efficient when collecting the results as it had cut out the poor responses. As the survey proved to be effective, this is how data will be collected for this research question. It will consist of both open and close-ended questions to allow a selection of qualitative and quantitative responses which could then be analysed and reflect a more personal side of the respondent and may give the research more background on the reasoning behind if or why young women feel pressured to wear more provocative clothes for likes. This particular section of qualitative method is what the Park and Lee’s (2017) research lacked.
The survey will be accessed through the website ‘Survey Monkey’ of which will be shared using the following social media pages; Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram as through research it is evident that generation Z uses these platforms more than anyone else.
Neundorf (2002) argues that media content analysis is only quantitative which juxtaposes Reese and Shoemaker’s (1996) opinion. They believe that content analysis should be divided into humanist and behaviourist traditions “Behavioural content analysis is not always conducted using quantitative techniques – the two tend to go together” (1996). This justifies the format of the research survey which can establish a reasoning behind why young women may feel pressured and what causes this pressure. To get a precise answer for the research, 40 responses will be needed to compare any common factors and the survey will consist of 21 questions. The Likert-type scale to make the respondents answer the questions as definite as possible.
Macnamara (2005) believes quantitative research can apply conform to the scientific method and produce reliable findings. Due to the short time it takes to complete surveys and the amount of surveys being completed, it will be random sampling which makes the results unbiased. The specific age range has been carefully thought out, so it reaches to younger participants who are new to Instagram and who are just starting to grow into adults which often effects their self-esteem and body changes. Although there may be patterns which may suggest that the younger participants do not apply to the survey, research will take place to find out why that is.
The research question is based in Britain as not only is it much more assessable to get the survey out, but there are also similar investigations ongoing in America about social media however, not any major research about the effects of young British women.
This research is relevant as it explores why teenagers use social media and Instagram and why it is popular. It also takes into the consideration the hormones and emotions that teenagers have which may reflect what they post. Responses from the large age range may give an indication of how a certain age range is feeling – whether they care more about body image than another ages. It may take two or three weeks to gather all of the research and responses and will constantly have to keep posting it online as it will likely become lost on people’s feed. Once all of the responses are in, it may take a couple of days to compare the responses dependant on the variation of the responses. This research question is different to any others as it is addressing why girls are wearing provocative clothing and whether it is out of choice. The survey will be completed by November 9th and data collection will begin from November 9th in order to receive results by the beginning of December.
Ethics
According to the Oxford dictionary, ethics are the “moral principles that govern a person’s behaviour or the conducting of an activity” (2018). To act on the ethics behind this research, the participants filling out the survey will remain completely anonymous to avoid any embarrassment. In order to get responses off participants who are not legally considered adults (under 16’s), parents’ will have to complete a permission form to give their consent for their child to take part in this survey.
References
American Association for Public Opinion Research, 2015. AAPOR Code of Ethics. AAPOR, Available from: https://www.aapor.org/Standards-Ethics/AAPOR-Code-of-Ethics.aspx [Accessed 5 November 2018].
Bordo, S., 2004. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. California: University of California Press.
Canaria, J. Croox, J and Dayao, A., 2018. Advances in Physical Ergonomics & Human Factors. Florida: Springer.
Caspi, S., 2002. The child is father of the man: personality continuities from childhood to adulthood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 158-172.
English Oxford Living Dictionaries, 2018. Definition of ethics. Oxford Dictionary, Oxford. Available from: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/ethics [Accessed 5 November 2018].
Facebook IQ, 2014. Coming of Age on Screens. Facebook. Available from: https://www.facebook.com/business/news/insights/coming-of-age-on-screens [Accessed 6 November 2018].
Ferwerda, B and Tkalcic, M., 2018. Predicting Users' Personality from Instagram Pictures: Using Visual and/or Content Features?. Proceedings of the 26th Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization, Anon. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Huang, Y and Su, S., 2018. Motives for Instagram Use and Topics of Interest among Young Adults. Future Internet, 10, 77.
Instagram, 2010. Instagram Launches [online]. Instagram. Available from: https://instagram-press.com/blog/2010/10/06/instagram-launches-2/ [Accessed 7 November 2018].
Jeong, H and McAndrew, F., 2012. Who does what on Facebook? Age, sex, and relationship status as predictors of Facebook use. Computers in Human Behaviour, 28, 2359-2365.
Keck, C., 2017. How to Get the Most Likes on Instagram Revealed by Chantel Jeffries. International Business Times, Available from: https://www.ibtimes.com/how-get-most-likes-instagram-revealed-chantel-jeffries-2551704 [Accessed 5 November 2018].
Lee, J and Park, H., 2017. Do private and sexual pictures receive more likes on Instagram. International Conference on Research and Innovation in Information Systems (ICRIIS), Langkawi, Malaysia 16 July 2017
Macnamara, J., 2005. Media content analysis: Its uses; benefits and best practice methodology. Asia Pacific Public Relations Journal, 6 (1), 1-34.
Neuendorf, K., 2002. The Content Analysis Guidebook. 2nd ed. Cleveland State University: Sage.
Reese, S and Shoemaker, P., 1996. Mediating the Message. 2nd ed. USA: Longman.
Statistica, 2018. Number of monthly active Instagram users from January 2013 to June 2018 (in millions). Available from: https://www.statista.com/statistics/253577/number-of-monthly-active-instagram-users/ [Accessed 7 November 2018].
Stec, C., 2018. Social Media Definitions: The Ultimate Glossary of Terms You Should Know. Hubspot [online]. 29 July 2018. Available from: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/social-media-terms [Accessed 7 November 2018].
Steinberg, L., 2008. A Social Neuroscience Perspective on Adolescent Risk-Taking. Developmental Review, 28, 78-106. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2396566/ [Accessed 9 November 2018].
Una Dabiero, 2018. How to get more likes on Instagram. Babe, Babe.net. Available from: https://babe.net/2018/06/22/how-to-get-more-likes-on-instagram-66602 [Accessed 7 November 2018].
Vogel, E., Rose, J., Roberts, L. and Eckles, K., 2014. Social comparison, social media, and self-esteem. Psychology Of Popular Media Culture, 3(4), 206-222.
Appendix
1. Are you from the UK?
2. If so, which part of the UK are you from?
3. Are you male or female or non-binary?
4. How old are you?
5. Do you have Instagram?
6. If yes, do you post pictures on Instagram often?
Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Often, Frequently, All the time
7. How many followers do you have on Instagram?
8. Are the majority of your follower’s males/female or non-binary?
9. Are the majority of your followers who like your posts males/females or non-binary?
Do you feel the need to post pictures to show your identity to others?
10. How do you think you can get the most likes on Instagram?
11. When posting a selfie where your clothing is showing how often are you wearing minimal clothing? Very Often Often Sometimes rarely Never
12. When posting a selfie where your clothing is showing how often are you wearing casual clothing? Very Often Often Sometimes rarely Never
13. Are the majority of your selfies where your clothing is showing in minimal or casual? In minimal/ Casual/ even
14. Have you ever felt the need to post pictures of yourself in minimal clothing for likes?
15. If so, is it because of pressure, trends, self-esteem/ body confidence other please state…
16. If not, do you feel others post pictures in less/minimal clothing for likes?
17. Have you ever posted a picture of yourself in a bikini?
18. If yes, have you received more likes on this post than you have in casual clothing?
19. What is your most liked selfie post? What are you wearing?
20. Do you feel as if you are influenced by others such as celebrities?
21. If yes which celebrities?