Social Media Influencers' Impact on Malaysian Young Adults' Beauty Standards

Chew, Chin Xin (2023) Social Media Influencers' Impact on Malaysian Young Adults' Beauty Standards. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University of Management and Technology.

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Abstract

Social media has become a necessary daily activity in today’s society. People almost spend a quarter of each day on social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube. However, people certainly know that it can cause harm or problems to other people when the purpose of using it is not good. Beauty standard is a reflection of what can social media influencers do to affect other people which can be an advantage or disadvantageous. Therefore, this research aims to investigate the impact of social media influencers on young adults’ beauty standards level and self-esteem. The research utilizes the Social Comparison Theory and Two-step Flow Theory as the theoretical framework for this study to understand the general tendency that people will constantly evaluate themselves with others and understand the way social media users will get affected their self-esteem and beauty standards by social media influencers. Quantitative data analysis has been used in this research, the responses of 150 Instagrammer aged between 19 - 25 years were collected through social media platforms. The researcher draws some meaningful conclusions from the analysis and interpretation of the data. According to the analysis, it shows that people have very low comparisons towards physical appearance and do not easily get affected by their self-esteem. As to conclude this research, social media users will not bring any effect on self-esteem and beauty standards as well as will not compare themselves with influencers of physical appearance.