“OMG you look amazing”: A Systematic Examination of the Text-Based Interactions Surrounding UK Adolescent Girls’ Self-Images on Instagram

Appearance-related content is ubiquitous across highly visual social media platforms, in both imagery and text. The present study aims to explore the content of text-based interactions initiated by self-images on Instagram. Seventeen adolescent girls from the UK (Age M = 15.12; SD = 1.80; Range = 12-18) provided data from their most recent Instagram posts (up to 10 posts) as part of one-to-one interviews. This included images (n = 85), captions (n = 85), direct comments on images (n = 630) and participants’ first replies to direct comments (n = 459). An inductive-deductive content analysis was used to analyse Instagram data, and a template analysis was used to analyse the interview data to aid with the interpretation of the content. Analyses showed positive appearance-related compliments were highly prevalent on Instagram posts (79.2% of comments) and were considered the norm. Compliments tended to focus on general, rather than specific appearance qualities. Girls tended to respond to compliments using likes, gratitude, or affectionate expressions. The findings highlight the role of self-objectification and self-presentation strategies in dictating the norms of adolescent girls’ text-based interactions on Instagram. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.