How Do Mass Media And Social Media Affect Women’s Mental Health?

9 min readSep 3, 2021

Everything in human life is based on communication and the ways of communicating have evolved throughout the centuries. At first, people were only able to communicate individually, however, as time went by, -in the 15th century- the intercommunication had spread and reached larger groups which created mass media. After encountering mass media, along with technological developments, another way of communication has taken place in our lives; social media. The birth of social media dates back to the 20th century and is defined as internet-based communication. Mass media and social media both contain ways of communicating which are used to reach the vast majority of the public and with their colossal impact on society, they influence individuals’ and affect their mental health. But how do mass media and social media affect women’s mental health?

Undoubtedly, anyone is influenced and affected by mass or social media somehow. However, I decided to look into women’s lives in particular, in order to see how different types of media tools affected women’s mental health through technology. My inspirations behind the issue are myself, the curiosity I have in-depth, to analyze such a topic which I can relate because I encounter these issues first hand, and a short film called “I’m Beautiful”. This short film is about a girl who faces the pressure of beauty perceptions, then tries to change herself accordingly to suit the standards.

While doing my research, I found two issues important; the effect of gender roles portrayed in television commercials and beauty perceptions reflected on social media, on women’s mental health.

Gender Roles In Television Advertisements

For this issue, I wanted to examine the portrayal of gender roles in television advertisements, how women are represented on screen, and the consequences of these representations on women’s mental health.

The term gender roles stand for the “appropriate” behaviors determined by cultural norms. It refers to prescribed life plans for women and men which influence the behaviours of individuals (Brocker, 2018). Therefore the cause behind the occurrence of gender roles in advertisements is the beliefs and the imposed positions of women and men. Also, gender roles are often used for earning money by the advertisements companies and are a source of profit. Therefore the continuation of gender roles remains the point in question. Undoubtedly, the mass media is spreading gender roles and is transportation to carry the norms. In other words, the usage of mass media means, the number of people reached will be larger and so does the influence. Therefore, the influence of gender roles on individuals’ identities and mental health gets much more visible with mass media tools. One of the most influential mass media tools is television commercials where an average person is exposed to around 6,000–10,000 commercials per day (Tankovska, 2021). This means we are unwittingly influenced by the commercials and the content of the commercials will have an impact on individuals’ mental health. Therefore, it matters what is shown and how individuals are represented in commercials, including the ideal roles set for the genders. As an illustration, a content analysis of male and female characters portrayed in Turkish television commercials indicated that women were more likely to appear in domestic environments such as home, and there was no indication of work or independent roles associated with women (Arslan, 2015). This might affect women’s mental health negatively since the commercials displayed are putting women in a position where no power or independence is given to them. Also, I have mostly seen women taking place in cleaning, houseware, and kitchen advertisements, often with children in domestic environments. Additionally, a study of Spanish television newscasts indicated that women’s representation and their portrayal augmented traditional feminine gender roles and stereotypes, which contributes to the ideal roles set for the women while having a damaging impact on their perspective of selfhood (Matud et.al, 2019). To clarify, the traditional female roles shown in commercials affect women’s view of themselves, therefore, leads to learned helplessness while increasing their susceptibility to mental problems.

The first source I found was a website from the American Psychological Association called, Psychology of Women Quarterly a.k.a ApaDivisions.org. The article I picked as my source was “Gender Role Internalization, Multiple Roles and Chinese Women’s Mental Health” and it was published on “Psychology of Women Quarterly” which is a scientific publication (Tang, 2001). The website was reliable since the researches published were empirical studies which meant the analysis included were tested as well as comprising peer reviews. The article was an analysis and the steps, numerical data, tables were included. The article was mainly focused on Chinese, specifically on Hong Kong women’s mental health, however, it included general information on prevalent mental health problems in women globally. The article touched upon the imposed obligation that women have to live up to men’s expectations and men-held stereotypes, while indicating the mental health concerns in consequence of gender role internalization such as depression, somatoform disorders, and anxiety disorders (APA, 1994, as cited in Tang, 2001). In addition, another study proves that in Hong Kong, it was reported that women predominated over men in lifetime prevalence rates of major depression which could be associated with gender roles influence on women’s mental health (Piccinelli & Homen, 1997, as cited in WHO, 2001). The same study also shows that the situation remained the same in the USA, Puerto Rico, Canada, France, Iceland, Taiwan, Korea, and Germany. Furthermore, women have also predominated in other mental health problems such as panic disorder, depressive episodes, and somatization, with depression as the main factor. This meant that mental health problems such as depression are mostly seen as a women’s mental health problem and there is a gender difference existing which could be connected with the overwhelmingly high encountered gender roles displayed on media.

Beauty Perceptions In Social Media

For this issue, I wanted to study the reflection of beauty perceptions on social media and how stereotyped beauty ideals along with beauty filters and thinness portrayal affect women’s mental health.

The term “beauty perceptions” refer to perceived standards of the beauty displayed and spread mainly via social media. The appearance of beauty perceptions is a circulation of all the imposed and undergoing norms. Beauty Perceptions affect the sense of self-worth, form appearance-related concerns, contribute to body dissatisfaction as well as damaging mental health. The dissemination of beauty perceptions is a result of one of the most influential communication tools of today’s world, social media. Social media sites -Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, and Pinterest- are computer-mediated and visual-based communication tools with over 3.6 billion users worldwide and are considered to be “impersonal mass media” (Clement, 2020). These social media tools make the perceptions even more down to earth. Most of the social media collaborations and product promotions are carried out in favour of beauty perceptions. Companies captivate people to buy products to suit the standards and beauty perceptions continue to spread. Furthermore, the distinctive feature of social media is that people are allowed and have more freedom than ever. Whereas in mass media, people only watch what is allowed to be on the screen and who is chosen to be on the screen. Since social media, it is the reflection of our private lives in the digital world, it makes it easier to compare and get affected and harder to distinguish its impacts. As an illustration, a thesis on the beauty, images, and filters women view and use on social media indicated that those filters are a reflection of how women want to look like and the filters provided a new reality of society’s perception of beauty (Eshiet, 2020). For the most part, filters promote round eyes, fleshy lips, sharp jawline, cheekbones, tiny waist, hourglass figure, and other thin-idealized features. Nonetheless, a study also shows how deceptive social media can be, by indicating that the average woman displayed on media is much skinnier and taller than the actual American women (Jefferson & Stake, 2009). Hence, this makes women want to alter their physical features while decreasing their self-esteem, sense of self-worth and at the same time increasing social anxiety, social comparison, body dissatisfaction.

The first source I found was a website from the APA called, Psycnet.APA.org. The article I picked as my source was “Social Media Effects On Young Women’s Body Image Concerns” (Perloff, 2014). The website had reliable sources and the article was published on a feminist forum as a review article. The article touched upon a variety of perspectives and made comparisons. The article also included detailed courses of action along with suggestions for further studies which made it comprehensive. However, it lacked numerical data which made the article less concrete.

So, what needs to be done? How can we reduce the negative impacts of the media on women’s mental health? The starting point of the problems was the cultural norms both for the gender roles and the beauty perceptions with the media’s role of influencing and reaching. Hence, there are two perspectives we can look at: media to spread unbiased content and education to have a solution in the long run while replacing the misperceptions and the cultural norms.

Regarding the first issue, regulations for the advertising industry should include the restrictions of possible damaging content in which women are put in a vulnerable position. For social media, since the posts or the content shared by every person cannot be checked, we should raise awareness in people by encouraging them to appreciate themselves with social media campaigns and movements like “Body Positivity”. However these only would be short-term and superficial solutions therefore as a long-term solution to both of the issues, education is essential. The values such as; the sense of self-worth, self-appreciation, and not needing validation should be taught in childhood to avoid any appearance or mental health-related concerns. The assistance of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) can be taken to establish a course worldwide that will include the teaching of values like equality and self-awareness.

In conclusion, how do mass media and social media affect women’s mental health? The answer is, it affects women’s mental health negatively in which they question their roles, positions and selves in life. Hence, it is possible to say that mass media’s and social media’s role in women’s mental health is rather adverse. There are some doubts in relation to my conclusion since the ongoing effect of norms might require to be looked at deeper. However, in the context of my issues and question, my confidence in the conclusion is in-depth high.

For my research, I have included contents analysis, articles from feminist forums, and peer reviews. I have connected an ongoing problem to today’s world via technology. I have also made comparisons between the two issues to have a clear understanding of the issues. However, I could have included more numerical data to support some of the statements.

Throughout my whole research process, I’ve learned that media can be a bridge between culture and today, which can carry the beliefs without being noticed by the users. Also, I’ve realized that the media is just the tip of the iceberg and other reasons such as cultural norms and what is being exposed to us over the centuries shouldn’t be forgotten. Hence, I think the media enlarged the issue with its power of reaching and contributed to the current norms.

Also, even though I was aware of the influence media tools might have on women, I hadn’t thought that the consequences were this dreadful and had serious impacts on women’s mental health. It made me see the actual reasons behind it as well as question what can be done to prevent such a stereotyped problem from getting in the way of people’s minds.

References

1. Arslan, E. (2015). A Content Analysis Of Male And Female Characters

Portrayed In Turkish Television Commercials. Hitit Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler

Enstitüsü Dergisi, 8(1), 236–251.

https://doi.org/10.17218/husbed.91416

2. Astbury, Jill (2001) Gender disparities in mental health. In: Mental health.

Ministerial Round Tables 2001, 54th World Health Assembly, 2001, Who,

Geneva, Switzerland.

https://www.who.int/mental_health/media/en/242.pdf

3. Carr, S. (2020, December 3). How Many Ads Do We See A Day? 2021 Daily Ad

Exposure Revealed! PPC Protect.

https://ppcprotect.com/how-many-ads-do-we-see-a-day/