How to Use Social Media in a Positive Way

Hello everyone!

Welcome back! Now that we have gotten all of the negative aspects out of the way, it is time to talk positively...

One of my major focal points behind the creation of my blog was so that I can help enlighten other women and young girls into learning how social media can be positive for their body image and confidence and not just impact negatively.

One of the great aspects of social media is that it can bring awareness to a lot of different issues that have not gotten awareness in the past. These issues include body positivity and bringing awareness to all different body types for society to start to accept and respect. According to an article written by Insider Magazine, a study in 2019 on women ages 18 and 30 revealed that after viewing body positive content on Instagram allowed them to feel better about their bodies and put them in a more positive mindset for the rest of the day. Even from personal experience I know that once I found influencers that had a similar body type to me, and were not just 'perfect', it allowed me to feel more confident in myself and know that I am not the only one out there with my body type. It has also given me the confidence I need to know that not all clothes are made for those who are thinner and that I should not be afraid to wear certain things because of my body.

Psychology Today did a great study on why body positivity content on social media is good for you. I won't go over the whole study here but just share the main takeaways and I will link it on the bottom of the post under sources- if you have time give it a read!

The three takeaways from the study are:

• Viewing body-positive social media can increase body satisfaction.

• Body-positive social media with captions that reinforce the body-positive movement may be especially beneficial.

• People may experience the benefits of body-positive social media regardless of their pre-existing ideas about beauty.

I very much so believe that in the past few years, 2019-now, social media is not so evil anymore when it comes to body image issues etc.. Of course it will always have the negative aspects of comparison and photoshop, creating unrealistic standards, but I do believe that there are enough positive aspects on social media to outweigh the those not so great parts. I think TikTok has done an amazing job at this and I am going to make a follow-up blog post explaining and giving examples of some of the best body positive trends on TikTok to bring even more awareness to them.

Stay positive and try to keep yourself on that positive side of TikTok, once you find your favorite body positive influencer you are going to become so much more comfortable and confident in your own skin :)

Sources:

Alleva, J. M. (2021, November 22). Why body-positive social media may be good for you ... Retrieved March 11, 2022, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind-your-body/202111/why-body-positive-social-media-may-be-good-you

Heger, E. (2021, March 9). Why social media can make you feel bad about your body - and 3 easy tips to use social media to boost self-esteem. Insider. Retrieved March 10, 2022, from https://www.insider.com/how-social-media-affects-body-image