Prolonged Instagram use may change how the brain perceives our bodies

Instagram use could influence not only how we see our bodies, but also how our brain perceives as “ours” the bodies we inhabit. In short, it could erode our sense of self to the point of no longer recognizing ourselves in our own bodies, or feeling “at home” within them.

This is the suggestion of a scientific study published in the international journal Computers in Human Behavior and implemented by a team of researchers coordinated by Professor Giuseppe Riva, director of the Humane Technology Lab at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan. The study, led by Dr. Maria Sansoni, raises the Digital Erosion of Bodily Identity Hypothesis: the idea is that years of exposure to selfies, filtered faces, and digital representations of the self can gradually blur the perceptive boundaries that allow us to recognize our faces as uniquely our own. In other words, if we live for years in a digital world where all faces tend to resemble each other, the risk is that it will become more difficult to remember what makes us unique.

Background

The mental health of adolescents and young adults represents one of the major public health challenges today. According to the World Health Organization, approximately one in seven adolescents and one in eight adults worldwide suffer from a mental disorder. Among the factors of greatest concern are those related to the body and self-image. In a culture increasingly focused on we look, physical appearance plays a growing role in the construction of personal identity and relationships with others. It’s therefore not surprising that body dissatisfaction is today associated with reduced psychological well-being and represents a significant risk factor for the development of eating disorders, depression, social anxiety, and low self-esteem.

In recent years, scientific debate has focused primarily on the role of social media. Platforms like Instagram have transformed the body into a primary tool for communication and self-representation. In these digital environments, the face and physical appearance are constantly exposed, observed, compared, modified through filters, and evaluated through likes, comments, and visibility metrics. This constant comparison with idealized images and, often unrealistic, aesthetic standards can increase perceived pressure regarding one’s appearance, contributing not only to greater body dissatisfaction but also to a more critical assessment of one’s body.

But what if the problem was deeper? The risk is that social media influenced not only the way we evaluate our bodies, but also the way we construct the sense of who we are.

The study

Indeed, in this new study researchers explored a previously almost completely overlooked aspect: the relationship between Instagram use and the processes that allow the brain to recognize one’s own face as belonging to oneself. The body is not simply an image. Every day, the brain continuously integrates information from within the body (such as heartbeat, limb position, and visceral sensations) with information from the external environment, as what we see and touch. From this integration arises a seemingly obvious yet fundamental sensation: the certainty that that body is our body and that we exist as individuals distinct from others.

Neuroscience shows that these processes represent one of the foundations of personal identity. When functioning properly, they contribute to emotional regulation, awareness of who we are, and the immediate sense that our body belongs to us. When these sensations are ‘cancelled’, it can become more difficult to feel fully “at home” in our own body, clearly recognize our internal states, and maintain a stable distinction between self and others. For this reason, alterations in these mechanisms are a vulnerability factor for various clinical conditions, including eating and dissociative disorders.

The team involved 95 young adults, both men and women, with an average age of 26 and a history of nearly eight years of Instagram use. Participants underwent virtual reality experiences known as body illusions. By synchronizing what a person sees and feels about their own body, these procedures can temporarily induce the sensation that another person’s face or body belongs to them. Used for years in neuroscience, body illusions allow us to study the solidity of the boundaries that separate the self from others and allow us to recognize our bodies as “ours.” The ease with which a person experiences these illusions therefore represents an indicator of how malleable and flexible an individual’s bodily identity is.

The results of the study revealed an unexpected phenomenon for the first time. The researchers observed a sort of “dose effect”: the longer the person’s history of Instagram use (and therefore the more years they had been using the platform), the greater the likelihood that participants perceived the face of the stranger shown in virtual reality as their own. This finding is particularly interesting because it concerns the face, arguably the most personal and identifying element of the human body.

Professor Riva affirms: “it is through our faces that we recognize ourselves in the mirror, construct our individuality, and are recognized by others. In other words, the association does not emerge in any bodily representation, but precisely in the part of the body most closely linked to the sense of who we are.”

According to the authors, these findings suggest that prolonged exposure to image-focused digital environments could influence some of the deeper processes through which the brain constructs a sense of identity, supporting what they defined as the “erosion of bodily identity hypothesis”. In other words, if for years we live in a digital world where all faces tend to resemble one another, the risk is that it becomes more difficult to remember what makes us unique

The study does not prove that Instagram causes mental health problems, nor that these changes necessarily have negative consequences. However, it opens a new perspective on the relationship between technology and identity.

Dr. Sansoni explains: “The participants involved in the study belong to the first generation to grow up with social media: they began using these platforms in late adolescence and have integrated them into their daily lives for almost a decade. If associations with processes fundamental to the construction of bodily identity are already emerging in these young adults, the question that arises concerns the new generations and new adolescents, who come into contact with these technologies at an increasingly early age and for increasingly longer periods of time.“

This article was originally published on news-medical