Most addictive substances are restricted by regulations, usually including age related limitations. However, social media platforms are controlled ineffectively (if at all) even though many are designed to target a young and impressionable audience with intermittent dopamine hits fuelling addiction to their smartphones. Many dangers exist in this online world, including impressionable young people being exposed to “extreme beauty” standards, which are likely to play some part in the increasing number of eating disorder and body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) diagnoses being made. Social media platforms often feature people with seemingly perfect faces, smiles, bodies and lives. Various filters and photo editing tools are used to enhance these images, possibly to incite envy in others. Those artificially enhanced appearances can lead to body dissatisfaction and low self-esteem in some vulnerable people. These individuals are at risk of being swindled by spurious advertising claims or slickly edited images demonstrating the end results of potentially dangerous procedures (although the danger is carefully concealed) that can be involved in achieving that supposedly ideal smile/face/body/life.
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