More than 70 percent of Taiwanese teenagers are unhappy with their body image, and the average teen uses social media for 4.2 hours a day, the Child Welfare League Foundation said yesterday, calling on parents to help their children with a “digital detox.”
Children can be overexposed to social media as it is updated around the clock, and it eats into the family time children need, the foundation told a news conference in Taipei at which it shared the results of an online survey it commissioned on junior and senior-high school students.
Of the respondents, 57 percent said they touch up their photos before uploading them to social media, while 45 percent said they edit out what they perceive to be specific flaws and 39 percent said they felt insecure about sharing pictures.
Photo courtesy of the Child Welfare League Foundation
Heavy users of social media feel significantly more anxiety, with nearly 67 touching up their social media pictures and 27 percent editing out specific “flaws” in their features, the foundation said.
Social media is linked to body image anxiety, as 42 percent of heavy users said they use filters on their selfies, up 11 percentage points from the average of 31 percent, it said.
Of the respondents, 58 percent said they thought they should gain or lose weight and 14 percent said they have considered cosmetic surgery, the foundation said.
Girls are more likely to feel insecure about their bodies than boys, it said.
In nearly 95 percent of the 12,320 valid responses received, the teens said they were social media users, the foundation said, adding that girls are more likely to feel insecure about their bodies than boys.
The foundation called on parents to help reduce their children’s social media and Internet consumption, encourage them to take part in other activities and assist them with self-appreciation exercises, the foundation said.
For resources and support, parents can call the foundation’s hotline at 0800-532-880, while teens can call 0800-001-769, it said.
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
The Sports Administration yesterday demanded an apology from the national table tennis association for barring 17-year-old Yeh Yi-tian (葉伊恬) from competing in the upcoming World Table Tennis (WTT) United States Smash tournament in Las Vegas this July. The sports agency said in a statement that the Chinese Taipei Table Tennis Association (CTTTA) must explain to the public why it withdrew Yeh from the WTT tournament in Las Vegas. The sports agency said it contacted the association to express its disapproval of the decision-making process after receiving a complaint from Yeh’s coach, Chuang
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
RSS