Sometimes when I attend public events young women will ask to take a photograph with me. I oblige most times. The scenarios are always the same. First, they open their phones, then select an app with a filter they like. Invariably, they take a selfie shot or have someone else take several pictures at different angles. Then, they subsequently check the phone to see how they look in the image. If they feel the angle or the filter did not do them justice, they ask if I can take another picture. Then, they spend time editing the digital image to enhance how they appear.

I was in awe the first time I saw how these filters worked. Your skin looks smoother, your teeth whiter, your face slimmer and contoured, and your complexion sometimes more toned or bronzed. On one occasion I politely asked a young lady if we could desist from using the filters because I did not recognize myself. What she showed me didn’t even look like me as a teenager. She then asked me to choose a filter to my liking. I gave up and told her not to use one for me.

Through these experiences I began to get a deeper appreciation for why people who met me would say, “But you look the same in real life as you do on your Instagram.” I realised it is because of how many in the social media spaces manipulate images using various filters.

A beauty filter is applied to still digital photographs or videos in real time to enhance the physical attractiveness of the subject. Typical effects of such filters include smoothing skin texture and modifying the proportions of facial features. With certain beauty photo editing apps, people can now use their fingers to make their waists smaller, rub wrinkles and lines from their faces, contour their cheekbones, add make-up, make themselves slimmer, their hair thicker, or their lips more voluptuous. Whatever you want, however, or however you choose to enhance your face and body, now you can with the range of photo filters and apps.

“Ninety per cent of women report using a filter or editing their photos before posting to even out their skin tone, reshape their jaw or nose, shave off weight, brighten or bronze their skin or whiten their teeth. Young women in the study also described regularly seeing advertisements or push notifications for cosmetic procedures particularly for teeth whitening, lip fillers, and surgery to enhance face and body features.” (City University London)

According to Snapchat, the app has 414 million daily active users and more than 800 million monthly active users who, on average, use filters — which it calls Lenses — creating approximately six billion filtered snaps every day.

One 2021 Instagram study revealed that over 90 per cent of participants, women and non-binary people aged 18 to 30, used beauty filters or edited their photos. Most said they feel pressured to post “perfect” pictures, look attractive, and compare themselves to others on social media.

Not only do social media sites offer beauty filters to enhance all sorts of images, but today hundreds of photo editing apps can provide thousands of animated effects templates, overlays, photo effects, and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered features to alter your visuals. Everything can be enhanced and improved with filters.

FaceApp was the top-grossing AI-powered app, generating US$100 million in 2022.
FaceApp is one of the most popular mobile apps for advanced photo editing, reported to have over 500 million downloads to date.

Meta reports that more than 600 million people have interacted with filters on Facebook or Instagram. Zoom users have also embraced the feature, with 2.2 million users accessing the platform’s appearance touch-ups.

In 2020 I was captivated by the The Dove Self-Esteem Project. The data pointed to a developing trend that 80 per cent of girls at age 13 had used an app or filter to change their appearance, and 94 per cent of young women reported pressure to be aesthetically validated to look a certain way because of their social media engagement.

Interestingly, shortly after the pandemic, many adults experienced a rise in “Zoom face dysphoria” as many of them became distracted by how they observe their facial imperfections in their on-camera image, and many reported difficulty in staying focused in their digital meeting/video calls, which resulted in them feeling an urgency to use the Zoom feature “Touch-up My Appearance” to maintain a more pleasing and fresh professional appearance.

Now, with the fierceness of AI, algorithms are trained extensively on facial image data sets and can map features quickly, superimposing enhancements like smoothed skin, contoured face shapes, and resized eyes and lips in seconds. Moreover, AI can immediately customize any ‘ideal’ cosmetic that a user feels they want. It is frightening sometimes how perfect an image can become instantly.

So, how have these filters changed our attitudes towards aesthetics?

Dermatologists report many patients voicing their cosmetic concerns during video consultations, and a rise in public interest in cosmetic surgery, as evidenced by Google trend analyses by Thawanyarat in 2022.

Moreover, the Zoom Effect has also increased concerns over appearance and heightened interest in aesthetic procedures, as indicated by a surge in consultations during and after pandemic restrictions.

Let me be clear: I don’t have a problem with photo filters, apps, and how these technologies work. Making colours vibrant and removing a pimple from your face or a stain from clothing can be transformative to a final meaningful photo in real time. Furthermore, in an age in which digital content drives people’s opinions, motivations, and conversions, individuals and corporations presenting their best images are essential in a competitive marketplace for attracting new clients and maintaining existing ones.

Where I have a challenge is with young impressionable individuals who have low self-esteem and are feeling immense pressure to alter or measure their physical appearance and external beauty against unrealistic, filtered, enhanced artificiality in the pursuit of digital acknowledgment and social media engagement.

Young women and men should never feel they have to define themselves according to what AI modifies as stereotypical standards of beauty because of all this social media infiltration.

Therefore, I would urge them (before they apply a photo filter to their image) to ask themself if they want to look completely different in reality from the digital image after the edit so that when people see them in real life they become confused. That should never be the case.

Remember, natural beauty shines from within. It’s not what people see, but how you make them feel by or in your presence, and no AI photo filter, Snap Lenses, or app can create the beauty that radiates from within.

Lisa Hanna is Member of Parliament for St Ann South Eastern, People’s National Party spokesperson on foreign affairs and foreign trade, and a former Cabinet member