jJust clicking the “bright babe” filter subtly lengthened the teen’s face, made her nose cleaner, and a dusting of freckles dotted her cheeks. Next, a “luminous makeup” filter erased skin imperfections, puffed out her lips into a rosebud, and extended her eyelashes far beyond what makeup could achieve. With a third click his face returned to reality.
Hundreds of millions of people now use beauty filters to alter their appearance on apps like Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok. This week TikTok announced new global restrictions on children’s access to those that mimic the effects of cosmetic surgery.
It came after research into the feelings of almost 200 teenagers and parents in the UK, US and several other countries found that girls were “susceptible to feelings of low self-esteem” as a result of their online experiences.
There is growing concern about the impact on well-being of such rapidly advancing technology, as generative artificial intelligence enables a new generation of what has been called “micropersonality cults.” It’s no small matter: TikTok has approximately one billion users.
An upcoming study by Professor Sonia Livingstone, professor of social psychology at the London School of Economics, will argue that the social pressures and comparisons that result from the use of increasingly image-manipulated social media may even have a greater effect on the mental health than seeing violence. .
Hundreds of millions of people use alternative reality filters on social media every day, from comical dog ears to beauty filters that reshape noses, whiten teeth, and enlarge eyes.
Dr Claire Pescott, an educator at the University of South Wales who studied 10- and 11-year-olds, agreed that the impact of online social comparison was being underestimated. During a study, a girl, unhappy with her appearance, told him: “I would like to wear a filter right now.”
“A lot of education revolves around internet safety: keeping ourselves safe from pedophiles or catfishing (using a fake persona online to enable romance or fraud),” he said. “But in reality the dangers are mutual. Comparing ourselves to others has a more emotional effect.”
But there is resistance to restrictions on the effects that some people consider a fundamental part of their online identity. Olga Isupova, a Russian digital artist living in Greece who designs beauty filters, said such measures were “absurd.” He added that having an adapted face was a necessary part of being “multiple people” in the digital age.
“You live your normal life, but it’s not the same life as online,” he said. “That’s why we need a corrected face for our life on social networks. For many people (online) it is a very competitive field and it is all about Darwinism. Many people use social networks not only for fun but as a place to elevate themselves in life, for the future, to make money.”
Either way, TikTok’s age blocking on some filters is unlikely to solve the problem quickly. One in five young people between the ages of eight and 16 lie on social media apps saying they are over 18. investigation UK communications regulator Ofcom found. Rules to tighten age verification will not come into force until next year.
There has been a steady stream of research indicating the risks of some beauty filters for teens. Last month, a small study of schoolgirls using Snapchat in Delhi found most reported “reduced self-esteem and experienced feelings of inadequacy when juxtaposing their natural appearance with their filtered images.” Research conducted in 2022 on the opinions of more than 300 Belgian teenagers who used facial filters was linked to their likelihood of accepting the idea of cosmetic surgery.
“Some children are resilient and see these images and say, ‘ugh, that’s a filter,’ but those who are more vulnerable… are prone to feeling bad when they see them,” Livingstone said. “We’re seeing more evidence that teenage girls feel vulnerable about their appearance.”
When TikTok’s research partner Internet Matters asked a 17-year-old Swedish girl about beauty filters, she said: “Since I’ve never had anything on my lips before, I can’t look at them anymore without feeling like they’re too small and It should be more like the effect.”
The social and psychological consequences of more extreme beauty filters now need more experimental research, said Jeremy Bailenson, founding director of Stanford University’s virtual human interaction laboratory.
In 2007, he helped coin the “Proteus effect,” a term to describe how people’s behavior can change to adapt to their online avatar. People wearing attractive virtual versions revealed more about themselves than those wearing less attractive versions.
“There needs to be a careful balance between regulation and welfare concerns,” he said. “Even small modifications to virtual beings can quickly become tools we rely on, for example the ‘tweak’ feature in Zoom and other video conferencing platforms.”
In response, Snapchat said it did not typically receive feedback about the negative impact of its “beauty lenses” on self-esteem.
Meta, which runs Instagram, said it was treading a fine line between safety and expression with its augmented reality effects. It said it consulted mental health experts and banned filters that directly encourage cosmetic surgery, for example by drawing surgical lines on a user’s face or selling procedures.
TikTok said there was a clear distinction between effects like animal ear filters and those designed to alter appearance, and that teens and parents had raised concerns about the “appearance” effects. In addition to the restrictions, he said he would raise awareness among people by creating filters “about some of the unwanted results that certain effects can pose.”