The Effect of Social Media among Individuals with Anorexia Nervosa
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The Relationship between Social Media Usage, Social Comparison and Self Esteem among Adolescent and Adult Inpatients with Anorexia Nervosa.
IRAS ID
169087
Contact name
Juliet K Rosewall
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
South West London & St George's Mental Health NHS Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 8 days
Research summary
Social media has become a primary tool used by modern society in the last few years. While social media can connect individuals to each other and provide a forum for sharing information, current research has suggested that there is potential for social media to be interpreted negatively. Because of this aspect of social media, it is imperative to further study how it can affect different groups of people. It is known that a core feature of eating disorders is body image disturbance. Social media is an outlet for photographs of oneself and others to be displayed and, thus, tapping into to body image. Therefore, one purpose of this study is to observe how social media can impact on the self-esteem of individuals with eating disorders. Another important factor is if social media can impact differing ages of these individuals. As social media is known to be widely used in adolscents, it is important to measure if adults use social media in the same way. For this reason, the current study seeks to observe differences between adults in an inpatient eating disorders ward and adolscents in an inpatient eating disorderds ward in social media usage, social comparison and self-esteem.
This study is a between-subjects desgin and will use three questionnaire measures which will be administered by the researcher. The involvement in this study is voluntary and will only last about twenty minutes or the length it takes to answer the questionnaires.
REC name
East Midlands - Leicester South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/EM/1313
Date of REC Opinion
29 Jan 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion