Just a few days ago, Tiktok announced a ban on beauty filters and body filters for users between the ages of 13 and 18. Imad Zafar, Global Communications Representative of ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, is going to adopt such a policy keeping in mind the mental health of children and teenagers.

Zafar said that because teenagers are not aware of the effects of using such filters, the company is going to ban their use. He said, "Since teenage children are not aware of the mental effects of such filters, our app is prepared to block them from using this feature."

In the coming days, children of that age will make their eyes bigger, increase the thickness of their lips, make their skin look smooth, change their skin color, change their facial features like "bold glamour" and  They will not be allowed to use beauty filters that make the face look like makeup. 

By the way, from time to time content such as taking care of mental health, personal empowerment, and motivating to love your body keep coming on Tik Tok platform. However, a large group of users are unaware of the mental impact of apps used for TikTok or other filters. Like, let's take a look at the bold glamor filter usage data for kids to be banned . To date (at the time of writing this report), users have created videos with this filter applied 264 million times . That is, 264 million times the video has been made by changing the shape of your face .  

But, what effect does using the filter have on the user? Some researchers from the City University of London have studied the negative effects of beauty and body filters on mental health in 2020. The study shows that filters such as making the skin color white, making the skin shiny, whitening the teeth, making the body look thin, making the 'J line sharp', making the nose smaller, making the eyes and lips look bigger are being used excessively .

In the study conducted with 175 women with an average age of 20 years, 90 percent of women said that they use filters on their photos or "edit" on their photos. 94 percent of the participants who used filters said they used filters because of pressure to look good. 

In 2021, an organization called Parents Together drew a similar conclusion from a survey of 200 teenagers aged 13 to 21 in the United States. In which 48 percent of teenagers use beauty filters at least once a week. One in five people use a filter on every post. 

63 percent of teenagers use filters to look better than their real face, 58 percent to hide parts of their face they don't like, and 52 percent to change their facial features. This survey also showed that the beauty filter has a negative effect on the self-confidence of teenagers . 61 percent of teens said that using a beauty filter made them look worse in real life. "TikTok and Snapchat filters make me feel bad," said a 13- to 15-year-old girl.   The use of the

filter seems to be creating dissatisfaction and pressure in the minds of teenagers. Thus, artificial beauty has been found to be more important than real beauty. Such thinking has affected their mental health. "When I was in middle school, I began to search for my self-worth according to society's standards of beauty." I used filters every day  And I used to pressure myself to have a perfect body', a teenager between the ages of 16 and 17 said, 'This pressure was reinforced by social media and beauty filters, which made me have an 'eating disorder'.' Creating a negative image can lead to a loss of self-confidence . They said that teenagers are embarrassed by photos that don't use filters. 

In an article on Jennifer Sullivan's beauty filter in New York's 'The Cut' magazine, Northwestern University psychology professor Ph.D. Renee Engeln says that teens are susceptible to depression, anxiety, and negative thoughts about body image, so photo filters are more harmful to teens.

EngelN said, "Usually we humans compare ourselves to each other, but through filters we compare ourselves to different versions of ourselves which are more harmful." It creates a sense that we can be different from what we are . And spends a lot of time and money on the compulsion to reach the beauty standard.'

Such filters make us victims of objectification. Barnard College of Columbia University Assistant Professor Ph.D. Tara is from Well . Well said in the article, "Using a filter is seeing yourself as a physical object, trying to improve it and make it perfect." The more people engage in self-objectification, the more they are unable to feel their emotions and feelings.' 

The Belgian Journal of Children and Media conducted a research with 333 teenagers with an average age of 16. Using filters on the face and body shows that the attraction to cosmetic surgery increases. There were 237 girls in the study. The study did not say how many girls actually wanted surgery. However, studies have shown a positive correlation between filter use and social acceptance of cosmetic surgery.

However, no studies have been done on the effects of beauty filters in Nepal, but the studies conducted in other countries are relevant here as well, psychiatrist Dr. It belongs to Arun Kunwar. According to him, since the advent of beauty filters, the idea of ​​what an ideal body should be among teenagers and young people has changed. Everyone started to see themselves as bad .

'The filter creates a body image issue i.e. I am not good, my life is not good, my face is not good . Brings dissatisfaction in oneself . There are many clients with similar views. One of the reasons for this is the social media platform where filters and such content are exposed a lot', says Kunwar, 'studies have shown that people who feel bad about themselves start feeling better about themselves if they don't use social media for a few weeks . These things have not made us forget what is normal. That's why children should not be exposed to social media too much.'

clinical psychologist Hasana Shrestha says that there is also a cycle of using filters.  A person who feels accepted in the society with his physical appearance also has self-acceptance. But those who repeatedly get compared to their physical appearance, they don't even have self-acceptance', says Shrestha, 'to see themselves only through the lens of their weakness, a filter has become like a tool to get validation from society. After using the filter, the real look becomes more appealing. In Shrestha's understanding, using a filter means staying away from reality. He said filters have become a means of confidence for some. Long-term use of a filter that looks good for a short period of time develops a bad pattern. 

"Whatever is done to a child from a young age, his thinking develops like that". Therefore, if children look at themselves through the lens of the beauty filter from a young age, they develop the belief that they should be like that,' said Shrestha.