This topic was actually a problem that bothered me at first. But I gradually discovered that this is not just a problem that I encountered alone. I once talked to a very close friend Vicky about “social appearance anxiety” and she said she felt the same way. However, she has always been recognized as a “beautiful girl” in the eyes of most people. What makes me even more curious is that when I was experiencing “social appearance anxiety”, I thought that if my eyes were bigger, my nose was straighter, or my body was sexier, I wouldn’t have felt this way. I even thought if I was as beautiful as my friend Vicky, I would not have this trouble. But why does she still feel the same way?
At the same time, a new term caught my attention: ‘filter age’. I see more and more beauty cameras and video apps popping up all the time. Mobile phone development is also more attention to the update of the camera lens. The iPhone, for example, now has three lenses. All the facts have reflected the current consumer demand. In an age that people are willing to share their daily life on social media, everyone wants to look better on the camera. At the same time, with the emergence of various social media apps, there appears a new career called “internet celebrity”.
Every time when I open some social apps, I even feel that I was watching a beauty contest. Everyone is sharing a nice photo or video of themselves and sharing their secrets to being beautiful. Such as how to make up, how to take care of your skin and how to dress up.
So, I did some research. I want to explore the causes of appearance anxiety and how to better alleviate this emotion. From my research, appearance anxiety is associated with many problems “Fear of being negatively evaluated for one’s appearance may also be highly relevant in the understanding of bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosa, and body dysmorphic disorder. Each of these disorders is not only associated with body image disturbance but is also often associated with higher social anxiety and/or social impairment.” (American Psychiatric Association, 2000)
At the same time, I found an interesting phenomenon from my reading “Cunningham (1986) found that college men rated certain female facial features more attractive (e.g., large, round, widely separated eyes, a short nose, and a small chin) and suggested that these traits might signal youthfulness and fertility.” Everyone will hear different evaluations from the outside. Is this external evaluation one of the factors that contribute to appearance anxiety? “physical appearance may be associated with social anxiety because of societal stresses on overall attractiveness. Given the importance of features beyond physique in societal judgments of appearance, a measure that encompasses overall appearance beyond physique in the assessment of social anxiety regarding one’s appearance may be useful” （Trevor 2008）From these articles, I find that people who experience facial anxiety are influenced by a variety of factors. Such as judgment from society and other people. Pressure from the social media environment, even from the environment everyone grew up in.