Changing Social Media for the Better

With studies indicating a rise in body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) in adolescents, addressing this situation has become more important than ever in our current society.

Although there are many possible causes to developing this condition, through the empathy interviews we have conducted with numerous Monta Vista High School students, we have found that content on social media is a major cause of lower self-esteem for many. This is also articulated from the Facebook whistleblower’s testimony regarding social media’s strong potential to worsen body image issues. Our mission is to address this issue by creating a mock algorithm that may be used to block out negative, body image lowering content from users’ social media feeds and promote recovery-related content instead.

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