https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444819888720 new media & society 1–17 © The Author(s) 2019 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/1461444819888720 journals.sagepub.com/home/nms Social media is not real: The effect of ‘Instagram vs reality’ images on women’s social comparison and body image Marika Tiggemann and Isabella Anderberg Flinders University, Australia Abstract One recent trend on Instagram consists of posting ‘Instagram vs reality’ images containing side-by-side photographs of the same woman, one an idealized depiction and the other a more natural depiction. This study aimed to experimentally investigate the effect of such images on body image. Participants were 305 women aged 18–30 years who were randomly assigned to view one of three sets of Instagram images: ‘Instagram vs reality’ images, the ‘ideal’ side alone or the ‘real’ side alone. As predicted, viewing the ‘Instagram vs reality’ and real images resulted in decreased body dissatisfaction relative to the ideal images. Furthermore, the detrimental effects of appearance comparison were much less marked for the ‘Instagram vs reality’ and real images than for the ideal images. It was concluded that ‘Instagram vs reality’ and real posts have the potential to bolster women’s body satisfaction, but more research is needed to assess their longer-term impact. Keywords Appearance comparison, body appreciation, body dissatisfaction, body image, idealized images, Instagram, interventions, social comparison, social media, social networking sites A casual scroll through Instagram will reveal a large number of pictures of near-perfect and seemingly flawless women. Corresponding research has demonstrated that Instagram Corresponding author: Marika Tiggemann, School of Psychology, Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide, SA 5001, Australia. Email: Marika.Tiggemann@flinders.edu.au 888720NMS 0 0 10.1177/1461444819888720new media & societyTiggemann and Anderberg research-article 2019 Article