The self in media: Exposure to hegemonic standardized content and its impact on body dissatisfaction

Social media use among young people has been associated with body dissatisfaction due to exposure to hegemonic beauty standards. This study examined the effect of hegemonic beauty content on body dissatisfaction among Indonesian adults. A true experiment with a pretest-posttest control group design involved 40 participants (20 females and 20 males) aged 18–25 years. Repeated-measures ANOVA showed no significant difference in body dissatisfaction between the experimental and control groups (p = .335). The control group had a higher mean score (44.770) than the experimental group (31.681), although the difference was not statistically significant. These findings indicate that brief exposure to body diversity content did not significantly affect body dissatisfaction. This result may reflect limited exposure duration and participants’ prior experiences with beauty standards. Future research should examine longer exposure periods using naturalistic longitudinal designs that account for individual differences and cultural context in social media use and body image.