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‘You have to be skinny’: body image issues in Hong Kong and social media’s effect on young people tackled in new play
- Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation founder Lindsey McAlister wrote ‘I’mperfect’ after discovering the intense pressure young people she knew felt about their bodies
- Featuring 35 young actors and dancers, the production will premiere at the Hong Kong Arts Centre in Wan Chai on November 10
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Why you can trust SCMP
How many hours do you spend on the internet every day?
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In Hong Kong, the average person spends nearly seven hours online daily, according to data company Statista – that’s more than a lot of people sleep.
For young people in their teens and twenties, social media is how they interact with the world, from communicating with friends to catching up with the news.
It is now well established that social media can cause body image issues because of the constant comparisons, both conscious and unconscious, that users make based on often unrealistic standards set by other people online.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, social media companies know about the damage they are causing. The report said Instagram’s own research, presented internally in March 2020, found that 32 per cent of teenage girls polled said that “when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse”.
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