State of the Georgia Girl Report

Social Media & Self-Image

Even absent overt harassment, the everyday content of image-driven social platforms shapes how girls see their own bodies, achievements, and social standing. Research on the relationship between girls’ body image and social media finds that internalizing the idealized lives portrayed on her content feeds is linked to serious physical and emotional consequences, including eating disorders, depressive symptoms, and lower rates of physical activity (Gordon, 2021). The mechanism does not require a bully; the mechanism is the feed itself. The gender pattern is consistent across studies. In Causes of stress among Georgia teens

summarizing the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey findings that gave rise to the national dialogue on adolescent mental health, the Washington Post reported that “girls are engulfed in a growing wave of sadness, violence, and trauma” (St. George, 2023) – a wave the CDC and subsequent research have attributed in significant part to the design of the digital environment adolescent girls inhabit (Slomski, 2023). Specifically, several tests confirm social media algorithms quickly display content biased toward the gender of the adolescent user, including content promoting unrealistic beauty standards and body types for girls (CCDH, 2022). For Georgia girls, this pressure shows up in data on stress. Three out of four girls in Georgia report stress about school; one-third report stress with peers or friends; and twice as many girls as boys are aware that social media causes stress.

FEMALE MALE

36%

19%

Problems with peers or friends

16%

7%

Social media

Social media and social stress impacts 2x as many girls as boys.

Georgia Department of Education, Georgia Student Health Survey – Middle and High School, 2023–2024

The majority of teen girls who use social media say they’ve been contacted by unwanted strangers online.

Unwanted Contact by Strangers on Social Media, Reported by Teen Girls

Teen girls must navigate a three-pronged threat in their use of social media platforms: persistent bullying from within their peer network, a wave of biased, image-based content in feeds, and contact from unwanted strangers targeting profiles of young girls. In a study from Common Sense Media in 2023, the majority of girls who use Instagram (58%) and Snapchat (57%) say they have been contacted by strangers in ways that make them feel uncomfortable on these platforms.

Instagram

58%

Snapchat

57%

TikTok

46%

YouTube

30%

Messaging Apps (Varied)

48%

Common Sense Media, Teens and Mental Health: How Girls Really Feel About Social Media, 2023.

POWERED BY THE GIRL SCOUT COUNCILS SERVING THE STATE OF GEORGIA 39