Social Media, Comparison, and Women are on the Front Lines

Endless scrolling. Filtered perfection. Constant comparison. This isn’t just social media – it’s a battlefield. And women are on the front lines.

The Psychology of Comparison

In 1954, psychologist Leon Festinger described a powerful human instinct: social comparison (Lewallen & Morawitz, 2016; Craft, Cone & Wonderlich et al., 2021). We naturally evaluate ourselves by comparing ourselves to others.

• Upward comparisons: Measuring ourselves against those who seem better often leaves us feeling worse, triggering insecurities and anxieties.
• Downward comparisons: My personal favorite and may provide a temporary boost, but social media relentlessly pushes us upward, feeding endless images of curated perfection.

What’s new is how platforms have weaponized this natural inclination for profit.

Why Women Are Especially Vulnerable

Research shows women are more drawn to apps emphasizing relationships, beauty, and validation, for example, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat. Boys, by contrast, often gravitate toward gaming and competition.

Psychologists describe this difference as communion (valuing connection and acceptance) versus agency (valuing achievement and competition). This makes women especially vulnerable to the comparison traps baked into social media’s design.

In The Anxious Generation (2024), Dr. Jonathan Haidt highlights four ways platforms exploit these vulnerabilities:

1. Visual Comparison and Perfectionism
   Women are more affected by perfectionism, especially the socially prescribed type – living up to what others demand (i.e., perceived), not just personal standards.
2. Relational Aggression
   Girls are more likely to experience social cruelty in subtle ways: exclusion, gossip, and cliques. Social media magnifies this, making cruelty and exclusion impossible to escape when it follows you 24/7.
3. Women More Easily Share Emotions and Disorders Feelings, thoughts and beliefs are contagious and are reinforced within a community (e.g., social media). In fact, there is an entire theory built around it: social contagion. If you are inherently more likely to be prone to such tendencies and enter communities that foster them, so will your beliefs. A bit of an echo chamber with a twisted feature. Another more entertaining example – have you ever watched a YouTube video on a psychological disorder and identified with a trait described – two minutes later, you’re convinced you have the disorder… be honest!
4. Women are More Subject to Predation and Harassment It’s a sad truth – men are more likely to partake in actions to extort women (and boys) sexually. This can lead to awful ends: cyberbullying, blackmail, public shaming, and physical harm.

The Cost: Anxiety, Depression, Dissatisfaction

When comparisons are built on unreality – filters, highlight reels, perfected selfies – the results are devastating. Just consider what being told you’re never enough from society would do to you.

• Facebook’s internal research revealed that Instagram worsened body image issues for one in three teen girls.
• Rates of anxiety, depression, and body dissatisfaction have soared, particularly among young women (Heidt, 2024).

Add in infinite scroll, push notifications, and algorithmic nudges, and the result is a system designed to keep users hooked and insecure. As the saying goes: 

“If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product.”

What Can Be Done

We should consider federal regulation – for example, age verification methods or even the restriction of purchase with intent to distribute to minors. You may consider that extreme; however, consider other industries that profit from psychological vulnerabilities, like gambling and tobacco – they’re in fact regulated. Why not social media?

At the same time, families and schools can help by building resilience:

• Encourage real-world activities and relationships that build self-worth beyond follower counts.
• Teach emotional coping skills and media literacy.

Taking Back Your Power

Social media isn’t all bad: it can bring connection, creativity, and support. But when comparison becomes the dominant experience, it undermines well-being. The moment you recognize that social media is designed to make you feel “never enough” and its content is structured to profit from you is the moment you can reclaim your power.

Your worth isn’t measured in likes or filtered perfection. Real confidence comes from living life on your own terms, in turn respecting who and what you are—not through someone else’s highlight reel or a filter to be perceived as something you are not.

And remember: sometimes the best comparison is noticing when others get more attention for less and realizing the algorithm, not your value, is what’s being judged.

Watch the video on YouTube!

Charles Randolph Founder and Author

Charles Randolph is the creator of ToSpeakOnline.com, a platform dedicated to providing quality information and empowering individuals through informed decision-making.

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