Keywords

Social Media Use, Self-Objectification, Self-Sexualization, Facebook, Instagram

Introduction

Sexualization is a term that ignited the feminist theory. It is a broad term that described the effects of social media on adults' behaviour especially after secondary education (Duschinksy, 2013). Studies showed that girls have phenomena like selfsexualization and self-objectification, but boys also have this type of addiction. The result showed that these media are the source to enhance the body surveillance sexualizing behaviour, self-objectification, and internalization of appearance among adolescents (Vandenbosch & Oostan, 2013). This study is an attempt to explore the self-objectification factors among boys and how they are getting addicted. The study was conducted to observe the effects of internalization of the body and reward beauty on self-sexualization behaviour of boys.

Traditional media made these standards of beauty which are called highly visible beauty standards (Stankiewicz & Rosselli, 2008). Rideout, Foehr, and Roberts (2010) argued that adolescents are spending their 7 to 8 hours on media per day.70% of U.S youth go online through the computer and give their 90 minutes per day for their personal use rather than schoolwork. They are multitasking, they use more than one media network at once that is almost 11-hours exposure they have per day (Rideout et al., 2010). Mainstream media is a brand to show sexual and objectified appearance, body surveillance beauty, and sexually appealing body to others. These things are labelled as sexualization. Galdi, Maass, and Cadinu (2014) claimed that the revelation of typical sexualizes media; it is related to stereotypes of gender. This type of content creates the hype of rape among youngsters (Fox, Ralston, Cooper, & Jones, 2015). Halliwell, Malson, and Tishner (2011) discussed that this type of content is also the cause of increasing unhappiness among viewers.

Self-sexualization does not have an accurate definition but some of researchers has defined it as being sexy is what they call self-sexualization (Erchull & Liss, 2013). Other researchers have defined it as behaviours of people in which they put certain things or accessories that make them erotic or appealing (Allen & Gervais 2012; Smolak, Murnen, & Myers, 2014). Self-sexualisation happens when male take sexualisation as directed upon themselves. On the other hand, for sex appeal and sexual appearance, self-sexualizing means boys give more attention to themselves. Self-sexualization is the term that is associated with the self-depiction of male or female for the sake of appreciation. People show their bodies to others to sexualize themselves or sexual appeal. The term sexualization has no specific definition but out of all definitions by the scholars, it is all time associated with sex and selfrepresentation. Adolescents are very curious that how they look; they want to show their beauty in the shadow of sexiness. On the other hand, they perceive peers’ likes and comments on social media as the mirror of their beauty. Now adolescents understand that which types of pictures will be acceptable and more valued on social networking sites by peers (Salimkhan, Manago, & Greenfield, 2010; Siibak, 2010). Adolescents post sexual pictures to get some popularity among peers. Siibak (2010) observed that youngsters post not only captivating pictures but also horny attractive pictures to get the attention of their peers on SNSs.

After having a glance over theory of self-objectification by Roberts and Fredrickson (1997), it reveals that daily exposure of sexy content badly affects emerging adults. In society, the concept of sexual objectification compels men and women to adopt this view for themselves. Self-objectification means that men slowly discriminate themselves by way of sexual substances to be treasured to get attention, sexual charm physical beauty. Exposure of magazines produces more strong tendency among emerging adults towards selfobjectification rather than TV (Tiggemann & Slater, 2014; Fardouly, Diedrichs, Vartanian, & Halliwell, 2015). MehdiZadeh (2010) argued that social networking sites introduce an entirely new technique of self-presentation.

Internalization of reward beauty is the term that means attractiveness. Thompson and Stice (2001) found that adults want to look like a magazine and music video model, and they go on a diet plan for it. Eating disorder and body-image disturbance are the cause of physical and mental health problems. Those individuals who are addicted to social media and the beauty presented on it may fall to eating disorder and health problems. They may not take care of their health to remain slim and smart. Vendemia and DeAndrea (2018) conducted an experiment to see that what impact of pictures posted on social media has and how it is evaluated by adult users.

It is also examined how they behave after watching thin ideal selfies. The result showed that most of adult posted their selfies with altered and filtered thin idealized pictures. Respondents evaluated other individuals’ pictures with less honesty. This shows that how they are conscious about their thin ideal beauty and sexualized pictures. They see pictures at different social media platforms which will cause depression, anxiety, and an eating disorder. Thompson and Stice (2001) argued that in the future, internalization of reward beauty and thin-ideal beauty become a cause of serious body concerns and body dissatisfaction. The pictures posted on social media have a great impact on female and male viewers. They try to copy the style and even the physical appearance of the male. They apply the filters to take selfies to look like the females they idealize on social media. This idealization creates dissatisfaction and discontentment among the girls about their physique.

Baumgartner, Sumter, Peter, and Valkenburg (2015) argued that youngsters post their sexy profile photos on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to get some popularity. It is liked and admired by the opposite sex but hated by girls as boys hate similar gender’s hot pictures but girls like this. Social media also have the same impact on a user's life. Sexual content on social media is the reason for sexual behaviour. Vandenbosch and Eggermont (2013) argued that sexual acts are only for good looking men in the music industry. Media has demanded men to have heavy muscles and to be shaved. Vandenbosch and Eggermont (2013) examined how male adolescents get exposed to sexualization, internalization of self-objectification and body observation from topmost time television programs, social media, and pornography websites. The researcher uses the structural equation model to know the relationship that how these media work on sexualization exposure. This research shows the direct relationship of sexualization with pornography websites and indirect relationships with other things.

Traditionally, sexual agents are parents, elders, and religion before we have media (e.g. TV, movies, drama, music, internet, and video games) selling these contents (Katchadourian, 1990). In modern societies, now there are technologies (e.g. Facebook, Instagram) such as texting and social networking sites. These technologies give easy access to sexualizing behaviour (Shafer, Bobkowski, & Brown, 2013). Youngsters get information about sex that what is appropriate and inappropriate. Many countries give proper sex education from their schools to get rid of early pregnancies and health care issues (Alford & Hauser, 2011).

Hasinoff (2013) argued that the issue of sexting is that many of the penalties of sexting are immature, inefficient, and unfair. Victims are generally blamed by the authorities of nonconsensual sexting, use strict porno laws against minors, and provide youngsters the recommendations that how they can easily abstain. While some champions of female media production observe, girls are using social media since the early 2000s, share and create their sexual content by sending mobile media. The researcher found that extreme use of Facebook and appearance conversation on Facebook causes self-equalization and self-objectification among adolescents. Objectification theory clearly explains the self-objectification. Social cognitive theory has been used to explore the internalization of rewarded ideal appearance. The diagram Figure 1 shows that adolescents use social networking sites for appearance conversation on Facebook that is the cause of self-sexualization behaviours, and the internalization of reward beauty is the cause of self-objectification (Eggermont, Trekels, & Ward, 2018). The above-mentioned lines show that the conversation about appearance makes people conscious about self- sexualization and self- objectification on media. The girls are greatly influenced by pictures shared on social media in which woman is portrayed more as an object of beauty and sexualization than boys.

Internalization of Reward Beauty

McKenney and Bigler (2016) found that adults are involved in sexual activity and getting low grades in schools. The researchers found that these individuals who were involved in internalized sexualization earned low scores in their academic careers. They spent most of the time in front of the mirror to apply makeup rather than studying. Harper and Tiggemann (2008) conducted experimental research about self-objectification. They found that the effect of media pictures has a greater impact on female, thin-ideal beauty in advertisement reported self-objectification, anxiety, antagonistic behaviour, weightconsciousness, and appearance stress. On the other hand, male have also similar feelings. They are not satisfied with their heavy body. Males that are involved in self-sexualization do not pay proper attention to their studies (Smolak, Murnen, & Myers, 2014). They keep on focusing on their apparent beauty. Males with bulky bodies have anxiety issues (Peat, Peyerl, & Muehlenkamp, 2008). They want to look like attractive males of social media but when they do not achieve that much beauty, they become depressed. This act of self-objectification causes problems for the males in the society.

Self-Objectification

Self-objectification is known as adoption of another individual perspective regarding one’s own physical self. Choma, Visser, Pazzebon, Bogaert, Busseri, and Sadava (2010) lead the research about self-worth, body shame, anxiety, and body surveillance, in which Canadian undergraduate university students selected as respondents. Researchers found that larger self-surveillance expected lower self-esteem, the relationship is the result taken through fully mediated body shame and anxiety appearance. Kapidzic and Martins (2015) conducted a content analysis research on 288 students about internalization and consumption relationship clothing and body-ism through Facebook. Magazine readers are more likely to are revealing clothing pictures. Television has a direct effect on pictures though the magazine has an indirect relationship in this regard. They found that television is about to show not only the face but also the body revealing clothes than the magazine. In the above-mentioned research, results showed that electronic media is more effective in spreading the sexual content where the users can observe the sexually appealing objects. Electronic media is highly involved in spreading sexual content than print media.

Social Media and Self-Objectification

Fox, Bailenson, and Tricase (2013) researched the proteus effect proposed by Yee and Bailenson. In this research, they examined self-perception and changed attitudes among adolescents in the immersive effective environment, and personified sexualized and nonsexualized avatars. The finding shows that sexualized avatar causes self-objectification and develop body-related judgments rather than non-sexualized embodiment. This behaviour affects women on and offline, and this avatar hits women badly at the risk of selfobjectification and rape myth acceptance. Halliwell, Malson, and Tishner (2011) conducted a research that women are portrayed in advertisements as objectified and sexual representation and this affects women's mental health and body. It causes dissatisfaction negatively. In this experimental research, the researcher got random data from British undergraduates, women. Advertising agencies use images that are displaying women as a sexual object and their sexual power in relationship with men. The result shows that women take these pictures seriously and have an eating disorder and get disturbed their mental health.

Social Media and Self-Sexualization Behaviour

Grabe, et al. (2008) researched the impact of media on body image concerns among women. According to communications theories, the regular viewers of media start perceiving the images presented on it as reality portrayals Gerbner, et al, (2002). Under this theory, the consistent representation of thin and attractive bodies of females on media becomes a centre of attraction, the ideal of beauty for the viewers. The research reveals in the growing body research and experiment that the ideal types of the girls because of their idealizing the models and the girls in music videos and on social media have become the thin body which leads them towards the eating disorders disease as symptoms can be seen and the reason is body dissatisfaction. Here, findings of this research indicate that a greater level of body dissatisfaction and eating disorders are the result of greater exposure to social media, fashion magazines or all types of published and electronic media in which females are presented as epitomes of beauty. Similar cases and research are here to define that why body dissatisfaction is playing a vital part in the stories of eating disorders and the reason is music and television viewing by the young girls and media usage becoming general.

Cikara, et al. (2011) found that the use of sexual images in advertisements is seems old as the advertising itself. Different industries like alcohol industry, tobacco industry, fashion industry, and music industry, etc have hired women for the promotion of their products. In such commercials, women are presented as sexualized objects. This objectification of women in such advertisements raises several questions about the efficacy of this strategy and most probably the estimate of the cost related to it. The Sexualized representation of adult women in the media has disastrous effects not only on the psychological and physical health of women and also on the well- being of men as they are tempted by the sexualized representation of females (Schooler & Ward, 2006; Zillmann & Bryant, 1988).

Stefanon, et al. (2011) shows the relation between SNs and self-worth. Their research emphases on the behaviour of social networking sites, media sharing behaviour as well as sharing of personal photos on several SNS. Photography has become an important part of the life events as cameras are now become omnipresent and ever-present (primarily as they count in new media devices such as mobile communication tool). Capturing photos are not only the memories of daily self-life but also the memories of occasions and special places. Counts and Fellheimer (2004) found that the sharing of photos connects the people and enhances the social connections between friends and family. These social connections make people aware of their surroundings and bring people closer to each other. However, when the pictures are presented in public or semi-public forums such as a Flickr album or Facebook profile, such photos may signal the being of relationships, a request for associations, or even a wish for connection. Boneva & Kraut (2002) suggested that women are more indulged in social activities and in making connections irrespective of male members. This difference in interaction may called such attitudes towards associations Tannen (1992) advised that women have specific communication goals, avoiding loneliness, with fostering public though males are more interested to engage in social sitting through communication. The study suggests that the use of social networking sites is different for males and females. The females are more active in media as compared to men. They are more habitual of showing themselves on media to receive comments and likes. The use of Photoshop or photo editing apps makes the people more attracted to show themselves on media.

The study is discussing the social risks for the adolescents because they must face the sexual behaviour on their social apps that they use. The research has been conducted to watch over the fact that what kind of impact social networking or early use of the technology are having on adolescents of modern age. The study will provide a solid proof for the society and parents to open their eyes and be concerned about the mental and physical health of children which is being or going to be ruin through social media and wrong use of technology. Now a days through Smartphone you are handling everything, just one touch and you can reach to another world but who will specify which world to choose to travel while sitting in your rooms. The adults can but kids do not have the maturity to do so. Smart phones have changed the structure of social communication in adolescents which mostly is sexual. The mitigation of all the evidence that adolescents are facing sexual behaviour online possible through parent's awareness regarding technology so they can know what is going on in their kid's life and what kind of things can badly affect their kids.

Hypotheses

H1: Social media use is a significant predictor of (a) Internalization of reward beauty, (b) self-objectification and (c) self-sexualization behaviour.

H2: Internalization of reward beauty is a significant predictor of (a) self-objectification and (b) self-sexualization behaviour.

H3: Self-objectification is a significant predictor of self-sexualization behaviour.

H4: (a) Internalization of reward beauty and (b) self-objectification will be mediator between social media and self-sexualization behaviour.

H5: Appearance conversation on Facebook and Instagram is a significant predictor of (a) Internalization of reward beauty, (b) self-objectification and (c) self-sexualization behaviour.

H6: (a) Internalization of reward beauty and (b) self-objectification will be mediator between appearance conversation on Facebook and Instagram and self-sexualization behaviour.

Material and Methods

In this research, researcher contacted the 500 university male students to collect the data during the month of November and December of 2019. Purposive sampling was used to find the potential respondents between the ages 18 to 28-year-old. Boys were enlisted from Lahore city different universities which are NUML university of Lahore, university of management science and technology, Garrison university of Lahore, University of central Punjab, and Punjab University.

Measures

The researcher organized the questionnaire with demographic questions for example age, gender, and their class in which they studied. Remaining questions were about selfobjectification, self-sexualization behaviour, internalization of reward beauty, and appearance conversation on Facebook and Instagram. We adapted the length of social media use scale from Trekels, Ward, and Eggermont’s (2018) study. Moreover, some of the items were taken from Frison, Subrahmanyam, and Eggermont’s (2016) study. The appearance conversation, internalization of rewarded behaviour and self-sexualization scale was adapted from the Trekels, Ward, and Eggermont’s (2018) and Thompson et al. (2004) study. On the other hand, self-objectification was adopted from the previous two studies (Noll & Fredricksin, 2018; vandenbosch & eggermont, 2013). Respondents answered the questions on 5-point Likert scale from (1) Never (2) Sometime (3) Often (4) Usually (5) Always.

Data Collection and Analysis

The researcher collects their data from above mentioned universities of Lahore. The researcher visited one by one university and take permission first from authorities of the university. Researchers collect their data under the supervision of their class teacher during class hours. In this study correlation and serial mediation approach was used. In that way SPSS software version 25 and PROCESS Macro by Hayes used to analyse the data.

Results

The researcher used the SPSS Process Macro developed by Hayes to analyse role of internalization of reward beauty and self-objectification between the relationship of usage of social media and self-sexualisation behaviour among the university students. We used the model 6 of Process Macro to find out the serial mediation. In this analysis, 5000 bootstrap model was used to create 95% bias-corrected and enhanced confidence intervals to test the important of secondary effects which are significant at p=<.001 if the 95% confidence interval does not include zero.”

In this serial mediation model, there are total six direct path and three indirect paths, these paths can be clearly seen in Table 1. In addition to this, Table 2 shows the indirect path coefficient values for the proposed serial mediation model. Direct effect Table 1 shows that social media use (SMU) significantly predicted the internalization of reward beauty (IRB), self-objectification (SO), and self-sexualization behaviour (SSB). Moreover, IRB positively predicted the SO and SSB. SO positively predicted the SSB. These results supported the H1a, H1b, H1c, H2a, H2b and H3.

Table 1: Direct Effect Of Social Media Use And Self-Sexualization Behaviour
Antecedent		Consequent
		IR Beauty		Self-objectification				SS Behaviour
	Coeff.	SE	p	Coeff.	SE	p	Coeff.	SE	p
TSMUse	.250	.003	< .001	.0176	.0205	.7811	.0976	.0034	.077
IRBeauty	------	-----	------	.2610	.0205	< .001	.4112	.0699	<.001
Self-objectification	-----	------	------	-----	-----	-----	.2272	.0105	<.001
Constant	9.8419	.647	< .001	57.0289	5.07913	<.001	13.7191	1.1303	.0000
	R2=.0624			R2=..0707			R2=.0480
	F(1, 248) = 16.5174, p< .001			F (2, 247) = 9.4017, p< .001			F (1, 248) = 12.5112, p< .001

Table 2: Indirect Effects Of Social Media Use And Self-Sexualization Behaviour
Mediators	SMU
	? Coeff.	SE	Boot LLCI 95%CI		Boot ULCI 95%CI
H4(a): SMU