Some 2000 teenagers are taking part in research designed to explore how they feel about being online for so much of their lives, constantly exposed to stories posted by their peers and celebrities.

The MIMIc project, led by Laura Vandenbosch, Professor at KU Leuven, aims to define the effects of 'malleable ideals' (the idealised representations of different achievements) in the media. The project is studying the impact of pressures created by these media narratives on the personal wellbeing of teenagers, as well as their perspectives on wider social issues.

The project combines insights from cultural sociology, media theory, and developmental psychology. It has followed 12–18-year-olds in Belgium, France and Slovenia over a period of a year to track their media habits and the impact on their wellbeing and beliefs. The shorter-term effects will be captured in a daily survey involving a subset of the original participants over a period of two weeks later in the project.

Vandenbosch and her colleagues hope to improve our understanding of the development of adolescents and the pressures they experience. This should help teenagers to better navigate the complexities of today’s digital society, as well as providing evidence to inform policy-making.

How do the media portray success?

The research team has been studying media that are popular among adolescents to understand the lifestyles that are promoted on these platforms. This has included thousands of music lyrics, TV shows, movies, Instagram accounts of famous influencers and social media profiles of adolescents.

By looking at the subjects that characters in popular films and series talk about, the images that influencers post online and the updates that adolescents share with their social networks, the team has learned more about the issues adolescents are confronted with when using media. Significantly, this research has already revealed a pervasive media narrative, which implies that success is due primarily to hard work and passion. This kind of narrative was present in half of the movies analysed, and around one in four of the songs on Spotify or Instagram posts of influencers.

What impact does this have on teenagers?  

As social media use has increased over the last decade, the mental health of young people has declined. For example, 80% of Flemish teenagers say that they sometimes suffer from performance pressure.

The hypothesis behind the MIMIc project is that this pressure may partly be caused by the images of success projected by popular media, which tend to emphasize the importance of hard work and passion while neglecting other factors. At the same time, for some adolescents, such messages may be inspirational. The research team is exploring the conditions under which exposure to malleable ideals may make adolescents flourish or suffer.

First results show that adolescents in Belgium, Slovenia and France who are being exposed to idealized content on social media also tend to set high standards for themselves and to believe that others, for example their parents or friends, expect them to reach such ambitious goals. They typically compare themselves to the perfect individuals they see on social media. But, interestingly, these trends do not change over time, so social media does not seem to “cause” perfectionism and comparison with others.

The project is also looking at how the media narrative around success might influence young people’s political views. In the words of Vandenbosch, “if you think that a certain societal problem, like being poor, is caused by not working for your money, or not being passionate enough, then of course, you miss the complex picture that drives certain inequalities in our society”.  

What can teenagers (and parents) do about it?  

Many teenagers are critical of the perfect images of success conveyed through the media. Nevertheless, they still report experiencing negative emotions when exposed to such images. Becoming conscious of those feelings and learning when to take a break can help to protect teenagers, according to Vandenbosch. And parents can play an influential role, particularly for pre-teens, by looking together at media content and discussing the feelings generated, for example, by narratives around success.

Biography
 

Laura Vandenbosch is an associate professor at the School for Mass Communication Research (BOF-ZAP research professorship grant, University of Leuven). The relationship between adolescents’ media uses and well-being is the core subject of her research, leading to international publications in several fields including developmental psychology, sexology, body image, social relationships and communication theory. In 2019, she received an ERC starting grant for the project “Malleability in mediated ideals: A paradigm to understand effects of contemporary media in adolescents’ well-being."