Photoshopping Images Hurt Teens

In her article “Does ‘Photoshopping’ Images Hurt Teens?,” Kaitlin Menza wrote that “altered photos are false advertisements that warp our body image.” Even though we know that these images are not real, they can still make us feel down about ourselves. We should not be self conscious because of the way a model looks because that is not an accurate representation of the way the body looks. It is often crucial to set standards in one's own life. The act of living up to one’s personalized set of standards is referred to as self consciousness. Guilt, pride, shame, and hubris are all examples of emotions that come with being self conscious. Emotions like guilt and shame make people feel ashamed and not right about themselves or their body. Other
emotions like pride and hubris affect people by triggering them to feel too happy about their body. Certain emotions can trigger a person to feel too happy about their body, emotions such as hubris or pride. In Micheal Lewis’ “Self Conscious Emotions”, he states “Research conducted by myself and by other psychologists has now shown that, in fact, children start to develop self-conscious emotions surprisingly early in life. Before a child reaches the third birthday, chances are good that he or she has started to manifest some of these emotions.”. In time, over three years to be exact they will develop self conscious emotions. The development of these emotions depends on the development of cognitive skills and age. To be that young and feel those emotions is jaw dropping shocking. Now that there is an agreed definition of what self consciousness is, there needs to be an agreement on if the effects are good or bad. In Micheal Lewis’ “Self Conscious Emotions”, he says “Self consciousness is not entirely a negative thing. Self-evaluation can also lead to positive and even overly positive emotions.”. This tells us that being self conscious can be good or bad. He's saying that even though, we know it can give us negative emotions, it can eventually lead to positive emotions. Some even say that there is no negative evaluation of the self when it comes to standards, rules, and goals. Of the many self conscious emotions, shame has been the most unvalued in its state to motivate human behavior. Eventually, one may overcome the time of feeling so down and become happier and feel happier. Because of this, one could become a braggart. On the other hand, we have the top negative effects of self consciousness.
When someone becomes self conscious, if you pay attention closely you'll notice that they will look away and touch or adjust their bodies. Some negative effects include the feelings of shame, depression, and insecurity. These emotions can seem to envelop oneself. Shame could also be interpreted as embarrassment. Depression is a feeling of severe despondency and dejection. Depression could lead to unimaginable situations or things one could to do themselves. Insecurity is the feeling of uncertainty or anxiety about oneself; lack of confidence. Insecurity can cause one to constantly feel ugly about himself. All of the negative effects can lead to very serious situations that could result in tragic
matters. Let's take it back a couple steps now to figure out what it is that causes us to be self conscious.
We often become self conscious, because of things that people say about us and stuff that has happened in the past. Such as when we were young kids with our siblings and we got in fights with them. We would say some pretty nasty things to each other right? Maybe even called each other stupid. Strangely enough, we would ‘joke’ with them and call them stupid or to quit eating all the food because they’re fat. However, there are many other ways that we can become self conscious, such as by seeing models. When we see models, some of us see how perfect and beautiful they are, and how we will never be like them. That can cause us to be self conscious and try to perfect our body image. While attempting to have a perfect body image we could hurt ourselves. We don't need to try to fix something that's not broken. We may feel like this is all insurmountable, when in reality, we can all face this head on
together. Ultimately, photoshop can cause us to feel self conscious about our body image, whether we like it or not. I took a poll via Twitter, ‘Does Photoshop Make You Feel Self Conscious?’. The results I got were not what I was expecting. 55% of people said yes, yes that photoshop does make them feel self conscious. 45% of people said no. As Kaitlin Menza tells us in “Does “Photoshopping” Images Hurt Teens?”, “Altered photos are false advertisements that warp our body image.”.This society's obsession with personal imaging is disgusting. Dean Kaufman tells us in “Do You Think You’re beautiful?”, he states; “The answer is that this culture's obsession with beauty is a crazy, sick, losing game, for both women and men, and especially for teenagers, and now, with the need to increase advertising revenues, for preadolescents, too.”. This society is playing this disgusting game where they put these photos out that aren't real, and then tell us to feel happy and love our body. To conclude, model bodies aren't always an accurate representation of the human body, therefore a person shouldn't feel self-conscious because they don't look like one. Seeing photoshopped images, make me feel self conscious. They make me feel weird about my body. There's always a solution though, and that it to find something that you love about yourself, and then once you find one, you continue to find more. I have learned how to love myself and I encourage you all to help end photoshop.