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Does a Lack of Transparency Lead to the Dark Side of Social Media? a Study in South Western Europe According to Gender and Age

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Good Practices and New Perspectives in Information Systems and Technologies (WorldCIST 2024)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems ((LNNS,volume 987))

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Abstract

Social media's globalization has had an impact on young people by exposing them to unachievable beauty standards and an abundance of meticulously edited images and seemingly perfect bodies. Does a lack of transparency lead to the dark side of social media? The purpose of this study is to shed light on the ways in which social media has impacted young people and the harmful tactics that these platforms use to manipulate people's body image. To obtain data for this study, a survey with 151 responses was conducted. The data was then analyzed using the chi-square test of independence as well as Fisher’s Exact Test (as the prerequisites of the chi-square test were not satisfied) by using the IBM SPSS Statistics software package. We can conclude that age and gender are not independent of experiencing different levels of pressure (women are more affected, as are younger people up to 25 years old) to maintain a perfect body through interacting on social media. More transparency is hence needed so that our youths are not led down the wrong path.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by the Research Unit on Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policies (UIDB/04058/2020) + (UIDP/04058/2020), funded by national funds through FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Languages and Cultures, University of Aveiro, 3810-193, Aveiro, Portugal

    André Filipe Silva, Daniela Durães & Inês Azevedo

  2. Department of Economics, Management, Industrial Engineering and Tourism, University of Aveiro, 3810-193, Aveiro, Portugal

    João Aparício & Manuel Au-Yong-Oliveira

  3. INESC TEC, Porto, Portugal

    Manuel Au-Yong-Oliveira

  4. Research Unit on Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policies (GOVCOPP), 3810-193, Aveiro, Portugal

    Manuel Au-Yong-Oliveira

Authors
  1. André Filipe Silva
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  2. Daniela Durães
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  3. Inês Azevedo
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  4. João Aparício
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  5. Manuel Au-Yong-Oliveira
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Manuel Au-Yong-Oliveira .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. ISEG, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    Álvaro Rocha

  2. College of Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    Hojjat Adeli

  3. Institute of Data Science and Digital Technologies, Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania

    Gintautas Dzemyda

  4. DCT, Universidade Portucalense, Porto, Portugal

    Fernando Moreira

  5. Institute of Information Technology, Lodz University of Technology, Łódz, Poland

    Aneta Poniszewska-Marańda

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Silva, A.F., Durães, D., Azevedo, I., Aparício, J., Au-Yong-Oliveira, M. (2024). Does a Lack of Transparency Lead to the Dark Side of Social Media? a Study in South Western Europe According to Gender and Age. In: Rocha, Á., Adeli, H., Dzemyda, G., Moreira, F., Poniszewska-Marańda, A. (eds) Good Practices and New Perspectives in Information Systems and Technologies. WorldCIST 2024. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 987. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-60221-4_15

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