The iPhone suddenly made everyone a photographer. With the advanced cameras came hundreds of thousands of editing applications that can take one picture and totally transform it into something new.
Social media has been transformed from a place to share statuses and recent photos, to a competition to see who can create the latest best picture on Instagram. How many of your friends pose in "trendy ways" to get the best picture? Probably a lot.
Recently, many young girls have discovered that there are other ways to change their appearance in a picture than just adding a filter. Apps such as Facetune, Photo Wonder and Perfect 365 allow the user to edit any photograph right on their phone.
With the easy-to-use apps, it is so easy to get carried away and over-edit a photo. Many people who over-edit and make it very obvious, smooth their faces, brighten their smile and apparently made themselves thinner, because door frames don't have curves in them.
Many will agree that there is a certain art to editing pictures. The goal is not to make it look over-edited, but enough to grab the attention of followers to (hopefully) get more likes than you ever had before, right?
However, this over-editing and poor adjusting of photographs just reminds us that no one is perfect. Celebrities such as Britney Spears have been accused of photoshopping their pictures.
For example...
Cosmopolitan Magazine posted Britney's latest bikini pic on their website following up on her photoshop accusation. This topic really sheds light on how society perceives themselves and what a big problem bad photo-editing can become. Britney Spears is known as a talented, beautiful pop star. By editing this photo to make herself look more thin, Britney is setting a poor example for girls. By making her thin waist even thinner she is saying that even though you are thin, it isn't enough.
Negative body image is a huge problem among young girls and guys today, and can lead to serious mental health problems and eating disorders. Being surrounded by these images constantly puts an image in young people's mind about what they are expected to look like to be considered beautiful and sexy. As if it wasn't bad enough, every advertisement, magazine cover and model has most likely been professionally photoshopped, now anyone has the opportunity to change their appearance to something "better."
The sad truth is that whether it is professional photoshopping or one of the many apps available, almost every picture on the Internet has been doctored in some way. This causes many body image issues, and needs to be stopped.
