What is the impact of viewing social media style images in different contexts on body satisfaction and body size estimation?

Previous research indicates that viewing images of bodies on social media can have an adverse effect on how individuals feel about their own bodies. Prior research has presented stimuli in various contexts, with some studies employing a lab-based approach and others attempting to replicate the social media context. However, there has been little research that considers how seeing these images in different contexts might have different effects. Methodological issues, such as these, have been highlighted as limiting the conclusions we can draw about the impact of social media on various well-being measures, including disordered eating and body satisfaction. In this study, we recruited 230 female participants via a university participation platform and exposed them to social media-style images of bodies, either in the lab or on a social media profile that they viewed on their own device. We then measured body satisfaction and body size judgments before and after this exposure. Results indicate that seeing images in a social media context, specifically in the Instagram app, seems to have a different impact than seeing the same images in a lab setting, such that in a lab setting there were no changes to body satisfaction or size estimation, but when using the smartphone app participants experienced changes in these measures. We also note that the effect of seeing these images is related to individual social media use and underlying disordered eating thoughts and behaviours. Future research should consider in more depth the characteristics of social media platforms that might exacerbate negative effects of seeing content in these contexts.