The influence of Instagram on Dutch adolescents with eating disorders.
Keywords
Loading...
Authors
Issue Date
2017-07-13
Language
en
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
The digital world is part of our daily life and Social Media are very common used platforms. A lot of different Social Media platforms are available, this also includes Instagram, which is a very fast growing Social Media platform based on visual representations. The social pressure to be perfect is becoming higher, due to the arrival of Social Media. Besides that, thinness, healthy lifestyles and sports have become more important during the last recent years and could be related to eating disorders.
The purpose of this study is to investigate how the Social Media platform Instagram affected Dutch adolescents with eating disorders. Qualitative research has been used to study this issue. By means of eight different interviews with Dutch adolescents, the most important information has been gathered to achieve a well founded answer. The respondents are chosen randomly and are interviewed by means of a semi-structured interview technique.
An eating disorder consists of different phases, namely the starting, middle and end phase, whereby the middle phase is the heaviest phase for the adolescents. The respondents of this study were situated in the middle and end phase of their eating disorders. During the interviews it has been concluded that Instagram do have several affects on Dutch adolescents with several kinds of eating disorders. The influence of Instagram, in the middle phase of the eating disorder, is more negative and is related to sports, (healthy) food and thinness. A small positive influence is seen during the middle phase, which means that Instagram can help the adolescents to search for peers. Instagram has a more positive influence during the end phase, because the platform often helps the adolescents to recover and building long-term relationships with peers to support each other in a positive manner.
Consequently, the dark side of Instagram is more emphasized in the middle phase compared to the end phase, owing to the fact that the adolescents in the middle phase are more focussed on content, which relates to reinforce their eating disorders.
Description
Citation
Supervisor
Faculty
Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen