Hi all, I'm a postgrad student doing some research for my masters dissertation into facebook and body image and the sometimes negative effects which social media can have on the way people perceive themselves.

Was wondering what people (16+) thought about facebook, has it ever made you worry about your weight/body? Be more critical about yourself? Spark off or worsen an eating problem?

I'm looking to write an article exploring this and was wondering if there were any people aged 16-30 ish with any thoughts on this and if anyone would be happy to chat to me about it. I know from chatting with some of my mates it sometimes causes us to be a bit more critical about ourselves and worry about our weight.

Please reply to this thread with any thoughts ASAP or I can give a private email if you would prefer.

Anything would be really helpful!
Thanks in advance

Ooops, I just voted in your poll and then realised that I'm too old. :$:-(

Just for the record though, I can't say facebook has ever made me feel negative about my body. :)

Ok no worries thank you for sharing!

Just finished a PhD on social networks sites, and my first thought is you might need to be more particular about your sample and recruitment and methodology if it's going to be a masters dissertation. Usually asking people for general comments on an on or offline forum wont satisfy your departmental guidelines.

Hi! One thing I would say is that Facebook makes it easy to compare yourself to others...having piled on a bit of weight whilst sitting at my desk writing up my PhD, it is always slightly comforting to see that most other people my age (i.e. friends etc on FB) are starting to have a middle age spread as well lol! But then there are always the annoying few that still have the same figure that we all had when we were 17! Having said that, it's not something that I stew on, more just that you can't help notice changes in people if you nosy at their photos or their profile pic. Best, KB

hi there, rather than an in depth study it is a journalism article therefore will be using stats etc which are already in existence am just looking for personal case studies and to speak to people rather than an in depth study - thanks for the advice though.

Am not in your required age range, but work with a young lady who is. Her sister in law posts nasty comments about her on that site, on a regular basis.

Although I advise my colleague to just ignore it, it makes her very upset.

That site can be really harmful.

Angelette