Photo editing apps underscore pressure to keep up

Lily Cole
Deputy Editor 

Traversing the world of the internet can be a beautiful experience. With the tap of an icon, you can communicate with people from across the globe and buy things from medicine to dog toys without even leaving your house. 

However the internet highway that is social media can be a bumpy road. From online dating disasters to cancel culture, the world of social media creates a lot of damage. One of the ways it can is through Photoshop. 

In the past month, Catherine “Kate” Middleton, Princess of Wales, was exposed for photoshopping a Mother’s Day picture of her and her children. After this, she announced her diagnosis of cancer, which came as a shock and very saddening reveal to the whole world. 

While it hasn’t been stated directly if she photoshopped the picture because of this, the main reason was Middleton said she was an “amateur photographer” who “occasionally experiments with editing.”

Before the diagnosis and apology for the picture, I had a question about photoshopping in general: why is it something people think to do?

With social media at everyone’s fingertips, “More than half of the world population uses social media, of which 99% access them via mobile at some point,” a study from the National Library of Medicine says. 

Concerns about the impact of social media on our mental health have become increasingly prevalent, a previous Voice report, “Social media and its influence on Generation Z” said. The widespread use of photo editing negatively affects body satisfaction and self-esteem. 

While I’ve never posted a photo of myself photoshopped, I will admit I’ve messed around with apps. One being FaceTune, which allows people to edit their appearance in a myriad of ways. The main one is editing, where you can remove blemishes, acne, tired lines and even weight.

I was amused to see all its features when I used the app. I could add makeup to a selfie and change my hair color. 

Out of sheer boredom, I edited enough of the selfie to the point that I felt bad. And I was upset with myself for editing the parts of myself that took me so long to love. 

For an app that’s mission statement is “to help you highlight what makes you, well, you!” It seems pretty misleading. 

I ended up deleting the app and only getting it back out of boredom. But, it always got deleted again. I think it’s because I didn’t want to undo the work I had done to appreciate myself, but mostly because I didn’t and still don’t want to be something I’m not. 

A report based on research with 175 young women and nonbinary people in the UK called “Changing the Perfect Picture: Smartphones, Social Media and Appearance Pressures” by Professor Rosalind Gill from City University of London’s Gener and Sexualities Research Centre says “that 90% of women reported using filters or editing their photos before posting them on social media.”

Social media’s impact on how we socialize and perceive each other has changed how we see ourselves, and being on these photoshopping apps puts everyone at risk of gaining an unhealthy image of themselves. 

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