What does this article have in common with Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X (formerly known as Twitter) and Snapchat?
It’s competing for your attention.
“On social media, attention is everything,” Public Relations Professor Klive Oh said.
When it comes to health and wellness content on social media, Oh said the tactics to gain your attention are advanced.
“Health and eating, because it’s essential to humans, it’s one of the topics that everyone will constantly think about,” Oh said. “And so it has a very important place in people’s minds.”
Competition for viewers’ attention, Oh said, takes precedence over actually sharing good information.
While social media can promote unhealthy trends in health and wellness, students said they have learned how to navigate social media with intention and balance.
Social Media as a Tool
How users interact with social media greatly impacts their mental wellbeing, Psychology Professor Jennifer Harriger said. She investigates the impact of these interactions, specifically through the body positivity movement’s messaging. Harriger’s research defines body positive content as challenging unattainable beauty standards by accepting diverse body sizes.
“Social media is not good or bad, it is merely a platform,” Harriger said. “Research shows that the amount of time spent engaged in appearance-related type activities on social media — rather than total time on the platform — are at higher risk for body dissatisfaction, depression or eating disordered thoughts and behaviors.”
Many of these learned behaviors can be traced back to how young adults learn to interact, or what scholars call social learning. Social learning, Oh said, is the process of children and young adults learning how to act by observing a role model — such as a teacher, older sibling or parent. Now, young people can also look to figures on social media.
“From what they see on social media they tend to figure out or learn, as in social learning, what trends are, what popular opinions are, how to behave. As in: ‘Oh, that’s cringe’ and, ‘We don’t want to do that,’” Oh said. “It’s about the way you dress, about the way you talk.”
Hooking the Viewer
Aspects of social media hook viewers in with strategies found in propaganda that induce fear, uncertainty and doubt, Oh said.
“I see that happening a lot with so-called influencers or TikTok accounts who share information,” Oh said. “‘If you are eating these and these foods, stop, it’ll kill you.’ And that’s fear.”
Oh said introducing uncertainty can take the form of hooks that suggest the user’s methods of weight loss are insufficient.
Nutrition Professor Loan Kim, who investigated pregnancy advice content on TikTok, said she observed similar strategies in her research.
“It sought to give advice from the perspective of fear,” Kim said. “It was a lot of ‘good and bad.’”
First-year Jack Taylor said the negativity he saw on social media was a reason why he eventually stopped using it altogether. However, prior to this, social media was a major source of information for Taylor when he was starting to get into weight lifting.
“There’s obviously going to be a lot of misinformation out there, but there’s also a lot of true information,” Taylor said. “So just do your own research — it brings up a lot of good points.”
Taylor’s tactic of confirming information via research is a habit Oh said is important when engaging with social media.
“When you come across content, you want to research it, understand the context,” Oh said. “You’re not going to go to the science journal and read articles, but you should at least check and triangulate certain findings.”
TikTok influencers are known for promoting health trends, some of which are dangerous. The Cleveland Clinic did a rundown of trends ranging from harmful — like taking too much Benadryl or dry scooping protein powder — to ineffectual and gross, like adding lemon juice to coffee. Other trends, like drinking aloe water, can be OK in moderation.
Within the scope of her research, Kim said she did not observe any misinformation she considered egregious. Many of the accounts kept advice to vague recommendations. However, she did observe accounts that used a tactic of “bait and switch.”
“They were giving you free information, but then ultimately, the goal is to guide you to the website where they’re promoting supplements,” Kim said. “There was some of that, but I wouldn’t say it was an overwhelming amount.”
A search on Instagram using #healthtips had a top result of a reel containing a woman in scrubs saying “four reasons why you can’t lose your saggy stomach and muffin top,” with all four of the solutions to the reasons being specific supplements. The reel directed the viewer to the profile’s bio, which stated “buy from amazon here, (up to 50% OFF).”
Notions regarding the miraculous properties of turmeric or magnesium are examples of this, Kim said.
A search on Instagram using #turmeric had results such as a reel with 2.9 million views stating daily ingestion of turmeric with black pepper, lime and hot water would reduce all of the inflammation in one’s body, ward off viral infections and cancer and promote weight loss. “Bloame,” a health and wellness brand, posted the reel.
“Food, we either elevate it as a cure-all, or we think it’s evil,” Kim said.
Black and white thinking, Kim said, is not limited to the scope of her research, but present in U.S. food culture at large. An example of this thinking is oily or fatty foods, which Americans typically perceive as being “bad.” However, many European diets incorporate these foods without health issues due to smaller portion sizes and moderation.
“Food in itself has no intrinsic moral value,” Kim said. “We put that on the food.”
In other words, Kim said, nutrition is not “black and white,” but gray.
Fasting from Social Media
Junior Carrie Birkhead moved from South Africa to Colorado at age 12. Birkhead said she downloaded various forms of social media at this time, and considers her initial posts on Instagram a timestamp beginning her life in the United States. However, she also considers this to be a time where she used social media to an unhealthy extent.
“I would be so concerned on comments and on people liking,” Birkhead said. “I got to a point where I was very wrapped up in my social media.”
In high school, Birkhead said she recalls getting bullied by her peers via social media. Oh said the age these interactions begin to occur for children continues to fall lower and lower.
“That stuff was very personal to me,” Birkhead said. “I don’t like people commenting on what I look like, how I act, what posts I have, what my content looks like.”
These experiences, Birkhead said, led her to disengage from social media as a whole.
“The only way you can actually see, like, the negative effects of it, is taking it away,” Birkhead said.
Putting Up a Wall
Junior Mason Turner said she had an experience similar to Birkhead’s in high school. Turner felt that social media influenced her health negatively during a period of her life in which she was already experiencing substantial change.
As Turner has grown as a person, she said she has learned how to better process the content she sees.
“I try to put up a personal wall between unrealistic expectations on social media,” Turner said. “Especially when it comes to personal figure.”
Turner still engages with social media but now better understands that much of the content exists to promote something.
“When I interact with media, I go into it thinking that this might not be a real expectation of what I should look like,” Turner said. “Especially as a girl, especially living out in California — bikini pictures and things like that — knowing that about myself and being like, ‘This can sometimes be an unreal expectation.’”
When Birkhead chose to return to social media, she said she shifted her entire outlook, unfollowing certain accounts and setting her own account to “private.” She also does not engage with it in the morning or prior to bed. Birkhead compares social media to a food intolerance.
“I figured out a healthy balance for me in my life,” Birkhead said. “I figured out what things worked and what things didn’t.”
Consuming and Producing Protective Content
Harriger’s research investigates protective content, which seeks to counteract the messaging of harmful content. Protective factors in content are considered themes that challenge or weaken harmful narratives. Protective content, Harriger said, includes “positive” content, such as body positivity messaging, as well as “neutral” content, such as inspirational quotes.
Junior Diana Escobar, founder of female athleticwear brand Mauv Apparel, said she posts wellness content as part of promoting her brand. Escobar said she founded Mauv after experiencing dissatisfaction with the activewear she owned, as it did not feel “designed by a woman.”
“I wanted to introduce an activewear line that really enhanced the hourglass body,” Escobar said. “Especially people of my culture, of Latin background, people with more curves.”
Many of the posts on the Mauv Apparel Instagram page contain hashtags related to these ideas, such as #athleticwearforcurves, #empoweredconfidence, #hourglassfigure, #fitness, #healthylifestyle, #selflove and #gymfit.
Escobar said she primarily promotes Mauv through social media. This includes partnering with other influencers, along with building up an online presence to put a face to the brand.
“I want the customer to know who I am too,” Escobar said. “So they can know that there’s an emotional connection back from the brand.”
Posts on Escobar’s personal account contain hashtags related to productivity and success, along with fitness. Many of the hooks of her videos, Escobar said, are some variation of “come with me and do this.” Her angle is creating content that motivates viewers to pursue their own goals.
“That’s sort of the hook,” Escobar said. “The invite into a community, or just into a lifestyle.”
Harriger said some studies have found body positive content can have a positive effect on the viewer. However, academic consensus on body positivity content is mixed, and other studies are less optimistic about body positivity content because it still leads participants to focus on their own bodies.
“Research demonstrates that exposure to body positivity posts may increase levels of self-objectification,” Harriger said. “Which is looking at your body through a
third person’s perspective, viewing your body as an object.”
Studies have also examined neutral content, Harriger said. Neutral content is defined as content without photos or videos of bodies, but still containing an inspirational message.
“When people view positive quotes that do not contain images or videos of people’s bodies, that might be more protective than traditional body positivity content,” Harriger said.
Birkhead said she follows several mindfulness accounts that post inspirational quotes.
“It normally brightens my day,” Birkhead said. “I’d be swiping through and I’d see a quote that’s like, ‘Think of one thing you’re grateful for right now.’ When I do it, suddenly I’m like, ‘Wow. Today is not as bad as I originally thought it would be.’”
Applying Lessons in a Connected World
While students said they harbor suspicions about social media, they also recognize it as a new essential.
Distancing oneself from social media, Birkhead said, can often be impractical.
“Our age is very tech focused and very social media focused,” Birkhead said. “So if you’re not online, you’re kind of out of the loop.”
Because of the different qualities within each individual, Oh said there is no one right way to interact with social media. He compares it to tasks like breathing or walking.
“People walk in different ways, just as effectively as I,” Oh said. “So I wouldn’t say there’s one single answer or prescription that I might give.”
While individual experiences might differ, Oh said more conscious use and fact-checking might be productive.
As future generations grow up with social media, Harriger said it’s important to focus on educating young users on healthy interactions with social platforms. This includes having conversations with younger users about the nature of information on social media.
“Educating users about how the platforms and algorithms work,” Harriger said. “The platforms are not showing you content because they care about you and they want you to have a positive experience. The algorithm is designed to keep you engaged for as long as possible, which generates revenue for the platform.”
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