Plastic Surgery and Social Networks: a Growing Combination

Are you very “social”? You may also be more inclined to plastic surgery. In a world where influencers play an increasingly dominant, sometimes questionable, role, this seems to be the trend of the moment, at least according to a study by Johns Hopkins University in the United States, a prestigious private university founded in 1876 in Baltimore, Maryland. The fact that Instagram, Snapchat and Tinder are now widespread online and used not only by very young people but also by a more mature audience is an established reality at international level.

The American study is interesting because it highlights how users of predominantly photo-based social media (first and foremost Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and Tinder) are more likely to undergo cosmetic procedures than those who use other types of networks where the “image” component is less dominant (such as Facebook or Twitter). The study was based on a survey of 252 participants over the age of 18 (average age 25), in which this tendency was clearly seen among the users most involved in photo-based social media.

The cause–effect relationship of this phenomenon is still to be fully explored, but it is certainly a trend that should be “monitored”, especially by parents of preadolescent and adolescent children. In the global hi-tech image culture, the obsession with photo filters that dominate Snapchat, Instagram and other face-editing apps contributes to the fact that many social network users are almost slaves to their own appearance, and perhaps for this type of person simple photo filters are not enough. This is why there is a growing tendency to resort to cosmetic surgery in real life, without too many second thoughts.

According to the interviews conducted by the Johns Hopkins researchers, users who live social media more intensely and more familiarly in their daily lives reported feeling more favourable towards aesthetic and surgical “touch-ups” than those who keep their lives away from social-media spotlights.

The risk, however, is that of wanting to look more and more like computer-generated “avatar” images, while at the same time moving away from the aesthetic canons of real, flesh-and-blood beauty. The research also showed that the web-surfers most present on Tinder, YouTube (where videos are the undisputed protagonists) and Snapchat declared, in higher percentages, that they were inclined to cosmetic surgery for themselves and others. Surprisingly, fans of Instagram and VSCO instead expressed some doubts, in the sense that they would be willing to consider plastic surgery for themselves, while basically mistrusting the practice in general for those who do not show their faces daily on social media. Users of Facebook and WhatsApp, on the other hand, did not show any greater inclination towards plastic surgery than the general population.

In a parallel or virtual world, in which people have often become slaves to “likes” and “followers”, an interesting finding emerged from interviews with plastic surgeons in Baltimore, who reported that they had received many patients showing modified selfies on their smartphones and asking to be “retouched” exactly like the filtered photos they brought to the clinic. The study does not in fact suggest a cause–effect relationship between the two phenomena, but a simple correlation.

This does not necessarily mean that the abuse of virtual filters makes users more accepting of permanently changing their own or others’ facial features; it simply shows that those who are more accustomed to digital alterations and who join social networks where people are literally judged through hearts and matches have fewer reservations and prejudices towards surgical practice. The issue has also been raised by other studies, in one of which the majority of plastic surgeons interviewed stated that they had received one or more patients with modified selfies in hand, asking to be retouched exactly like the filtered photos they brought to the practice.

Maria Serena Patriarca