RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL MEDIA AND BODY IMAGE AMONG ADOLESCENTS

One of the innovations of the XXI century that identifies most of the youth today, are the social networks. Actually, adolescents spend a lot of time in the interaction with the socials. This interaction has many repercussions on their thought, opinion, and way to react. One of the most typical concerns of adolescents today is the body image and how to look on socials. Generally, if an adolescent show self-control and high self-esteem, the probability is higher to correspond to the real image (Lucia et al., 2006). Self-perception of the body image may not correspond to the real image. This study will try to correlate the body image and the influence of social networks on the selfperception of adolescents. The aim of the study was to find out how the activities used on Facebook are correlated with the body image in adolescents. 15-18 years old adolescents were taken into consideration for the target group. Correlation and regression analysis were performed using SPSS. Quantitative methods were used to investigate the regularity of adolescents’ time spent on Facebook and their opinion regarding body image. 180 participants were considered for the study. Results showed a positive correlation between photo profile updating frequency on Facebook and the satisfaction for specific parts of proper body. The hypotheses that body image was correlated with the frequency of the uploading of proper photos was confirmed. Being Facebook very present in the daily life of adolescents, could be suggested the extension of the study similarly in other contests of the life of adolescents, in particular, on self-esteem in school and in the social interactions with peers.