Social Media Addiction Among Individuals Who Underwent Rhinoplasty: Myth or Reality?

Overview

Rhinoplasty patients are often assumed to be heavier and more dependent social media users, but the authors state no evidence-based study had tested it. This study compared self-esteem, body perception and social media use between people who had the operation and hospital employees who had not.

Sections of note

• Conducted at two centers: rhinoplasty patients from one researcher's private clinic, controls from employees of a university hospital.
• 100 patients and 102 healthy unmatched controls enrolled after inclusion and exclusion criteria.
• Data collected: age, gender, years of education, and type of social media use.
• Instruments: the social media addiction scale, the Rosenberg self-esteem scale, and a body perception scale.
• The groups had similar body image and self-esteem scores.
• Social media addiction scores were significantly higher in the rhinoplasty group at the 0.05 level.
• Using the addiction cutoff, 8 rhinoplasty patients and 10 controls met the threshold; in mediation analysis the body image coefficient was significant while the self-esteem coefficient was not.

What it means for a patient

• The average addiction score was higher in patients, but fewer of them actually met the cutoff for addiction than controls did.
• Body image and self-esteem did not differ between the groups.
• The authors conclude the view of rhinoplasty patients as social media addicts is a form of stigmatization rather than a supported finding.
• Limits: 100 patients and 102 unmatched controls, controls drawn from hospital employees, and a cross-sectional design that cannot show cause.

Why this paper matters

Assumptions about the psychology of cosmetic surgery patients affect how they are treated and counseled, and this tests one directly. The mismatch between the mean score difference and the cutoff counts is the informative part. The unmatched control group is the main design weakness.

Terms

• Social media addiction scale: A questionnaire measuring dependent patterns of social media use.
• Rosenberg self-esteem scale: A widely used validated ten-item self-esteem questionnaire.
• Body perception: How a person perceives their own physical appearance.
• Mediation analysis: A statistical method testing whether one variable explains the link between two others.
• Cutoff: A threshold score above which a condition is considered present.