Research On Youth Appearance Anxiety In The Perspective Of Media Availability Theory

With the prevalence of the "looks economy",young people’s attention to appearance is increasing,and even phenomena such as "looks supremacy" and "looks worship" have emerged.This not only exacerbates the psychological anxiety derived from the focus on appearance,but also has an impact on the healthy development of society.Driven by media technology,appearance anxiety is showing an increasingly intense trend.Therefore,it is necessary to conduct a deeper study of the generation and dissemination mechanism of appearance anxiety,and make targeted recommendations to prevent further spread of youth appearance anxiety.This study conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 young people suffering from "appearance anxiety",and conducted participatory observations on related topics on social media platforms such as Weibo,Tik Tok,and Xiaohongshu.The aim was to study how media technology affects the generation of youth appearance anxiety and how it promotes the spread of anxiety emotions,ultimately leading to the development of appearance anxiety as a universal social phenomenon.This study explored the impact of the technical characteristics of social media on youth anxiety from three perspectives.From the perspective of production availability,social media provides the possibility of beautifying oneself and publishing to the online space,but at the same time it also reinforces the anxiety emotions of young people,causing cognitive dissonance in the process of social comparison with others.From the perspective of social availability,the technical functions of social media allow users to express emotions and influence other users,promoting the formation of circles for people with similar anxiety.From the perspective of dissemination availability,social media pushes information to individuals with similar emotional tendencies and interests through interest matching algorithms,while highly homogenized content and numerous pieces of information bind users in a technological cocoon.This appearance anxiety information is widely spread through the process of mutual influence between audiences and media.The study found that individual anxiety mainly arises from upward comparison with people who are better than oneself,and media technology provides a platform for social comparison.On this platform,individuals can access more "high appearance value" groups,thus creating a psychological gap.After individual anxiety arises,they start to express their anxiety emotions in the online world,and algorithmic technology gathers people with the same anxiety together,further spreading anxiety emotions in such a group emotional atmosphere,ultimately evolving into a social mentality.In order to alleviate the anxiety of young people and establish a clear and bright Internet public opinion ecology,this article proposes corresponding adjustment strategies based on the research results.First,users and key opinion leaders should present diversified content and express diverse aesthetic viewpoints in content creation.Secondly,young individuals should establish a comprehensive personal image and focus on the improvement of inner value.Finally,platforms should continuously improve their functional mechanisms using technology and regulate past commercial marketing behaviors in order to reduce the further spread of appearance anxiety emotions in society.