- Reflexivity is the practice of making viewers aware of the material and technical means of production by featuring those aspects as the "content" of a cultural production. Postmodernism is a term used to capture life during a period of radical transformation of social, emotional, and political aspects.
How Reflexivity and Postmodernism relate to unrealistic expectations via social media:
- Most teens are conscious that many of the expectations they view on the daily via social media are unrealistic, yet they still strive to look just like person in the image. Postmodernism is what really kicked off the concept of expectations via social media. As social media became more commonly used everyday, society is exposed to more images. Many of the images being from friends, or icons that we look up to and strive to be like, if this is all we are ever seeing then those images become our expectations.
- According to new research, Americans check their phones every 12 minutes, or 80 times a day!
- When opening social media apps, we are bound to see pictures of people who look skinny, have no acne, have expensive jewelry, and lots of money. How can this not affect how teens think of themselves if this is all they see? Before modernism there weren't as many ways to get unrealistic expectations. There weren't social media apps, and most of our interactions with people were face to face. There wasn't a way to "edit" yourself in real life other than maybe plastic surgery. Postmodernism has brought editing apps to the playing field and has provided easier access to finding the best looking people in the world in just seconds on your phone.
- Pictured to the right: Before and after pictures from a editing app available to anyone who owns a smartphone called Facetune 2. This isn't the only editing app that is readily available to teens who feel insecure about their appearance. It makes it easy for people to change how they appear and sets the bar even higher for image standards on social media. It is difficult to tell what is real and what is edited now a day. 
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