Snapchat dysmorphia is real and it’s ruining peoples lives
A new wave of body augmentation has hit millennials over the last few years and it has caused a rise in concern amongst cosmetic surgeons across the world. In a new research paper in the JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery, doctors have outlined their worries over a new condition defined as Snapchat dysmorphia.
Where once you would walk into a surgery and ask to look like a celebrity now consumers are wanting to look like perfected photos of themselves.
Inspired by touched up photos of themselves from apps like FaceTune and filters, millennials are heading to their cosmetic surgeons to find ways to mirror the appearance they find in their photos. They have become accustomed to seeing themselves in a digitally altered state where they “blur imperfections, plump their lips, thin out their noses, and brighten their skin and sometimes go even further enlarging their eyes and changing the proportions of their face.” said the practice DC dermatology.
24 billion selfies were uploaded last year alone, this type of growing self-obsession is fueling the rise in a variance of psychological conditions including such afflictions as selfitis.
Doctors at Boston University School of Medicine’s Department of Dermatology wrote in the JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery “It can be argued that these apps are making us lose touch with reality because we expect to look perfectly primped and filtered in real life as well.”
We’re now entering a world where we’re becoming more obsessed with ourselves than ever before. Where people are exposed to their own facial image thousands of times per year and are susceptible to how many likes and dislikes our appearance receives. This vulnerability is causing people to see themselves in a whole new way. Doctors define this compulsion as body dysmorphic disorder, the relentless fixation with a perceived flaw in appearance.
55% of Facial plastic surgeons have seen a rise in America of patients who want surgeries to help them look better, this is up 13% increase from 2016. Boris Paskhover, a facial plastic surgeon at Rutgers University and author on the research paper, he added, “They have to understand, I can’t just move your nose around. I have to adjust the skin, the bones, the cartilage.”
Image by: Noa Zuidervaart
