Rectangle 241

Computational Journalism Analysis on Young Adults’ Body Images and Attitudes Toward Plastic Surgery International

Authors

Chutisant Kerdvibulvech,Pattaragun Wanishwattana

Abstract

Computational journalism, especially social media analysis, is a very popular field in computational science. This study was conducted to explore and analyze the impact of the intensity of the exposure to social media on young Thai adults’ body images and attitudes toward plastic surgery. The purposive sampling method was used for choosing 250 young Thai men and women aged 21 to 40 who used Facebook and/or Instagram on a regular basis.

           Online survey questionnaires were posted on Facebook for one month to achieve the results. It was found that young Thai adults frequently and heavily used both social media. Having appearance pressure from and repeated social comparison with idealistic media images, a considerable number of participants displayed more negative self-perceptions and engaged in appearance-changing strategies through increased appearance investment. The results showed that the more these young adults were exposed to social media, the more they were likely to develop a negative body image of themselves, which later caused their attitude toward plastic surgery to be positive.