{"id":53231,"date":"2024-06-18T12:13:16","date_gmt":"2024-06-18T08:13:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/?post_type=articles&p=254535"},"modified":"2024-06-18T16:26:58","modified_gmt":"2024-06-18T12:26:58","slug":"saving-face-facial-dysmorphia-perception-drift-rise","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/me\/articles\/saving-face-facial-dysmorphia-perception-drift-rise\/","title":{"rendered":"Saving Face: Why We’re So At Odds With What We Look Like"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Saving Face: Why Perception Drift & Facial Dysmorphia Are On The Rise<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Casting my mind back to 2020, a year when most of the world could only connect with their loved ones via webcam, I remember patiently waiting for my friends to hop on a video call. With nowhere else to shift my view, all that was staring back at me was my own digital reflection. It was then that I noticed the subtle sag of my brows and how uneven they were. The lines in my neck, magnified by pixels, mortified me, and the crooked shadow cast by my nose felt more jarring than ever, as did the asymmetry of my eyes. Even once chatting away\u2014and a few wines deep\u2014I couldn\u2019t shake the focus on what my mouth looked like when I spoke certain words or how my skin scrunched up when I laughed. \u2018Is that really how I look?\u2019 I thought. The picture didn\u2019t change once I closed my laptop, either. My reflection, or rather, how I saw it, was changed. And I\u2019m not alone in this.<\/p>\n

Since the dawn of social media and blogspots, humans have become enraptured by their own image. Surveying it, capturing it, maintaining it. According to graphics analysis company Eksposure, around 93 million selfies are taken each day\u2014and of those 93 million, a substantial amount end up shared, maybe even ending up on our feeds. While an obsession with his own image saw the demise of Narcissus, much of life as we know it can be traced back to the discovery of our reflections. As historian Ian Mortimer notes in his book, Millennium: From Religion to Revolution: How Civilization Has Changed Over a Thousand Years<\/em><\/a>, the advent of the mirror reshaped humanity\u2019s idea of what it means to be an individual.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe very act of a person seeing himself in a mirror encouraged him to think of himself in a different way. He began to see himself as unique,\u201d Mortimer writes. \u201cPreviously, people only understood their identity in relation to groups\u2014their household, their manor, their town or parish\u2014and in relation to God.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the 21st century, a reflection holds many powers, and you\u2019d be hard-pressed to get through the day without passing a reflective surface. From bathrooms, stores, streets, offices, cars and even in gardens, forms of mirrors are everywhere, and they don\u2019t just remind us that we exist as individuals moving through the world, they show us how that changes with the slightest head tilt. But beyond demonstrating the disturbing power of bad lighting, what does it do to us to see our faces so much?<\/p>\n

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The modern world is steeped in biases towards attractive people\u2014sure, attractiveness can shift based on non-physical qualities, but for the most part, looks really do count for something. Individuals who are considered conventionally good-looking are not only perceived more positively, on average but are even more likely to experience social rewards in the form of attention, pleasant treatment and admiration. And when you consider the swarms of media and commercial messaging we\u2019ve grown up with, illuminating all the ways we need to improve\u2014and how much it\u2019ll cost us\u2014it\u2019s easy
\nto see why one might zoom in a little on one\u2019s selfies. Sometimes, though, there\u2019s a disconnect in what we see.<\/p>\n

The thing about photos, videos and other offcuts of our likeness is that part of what makes them so fascinating to us is that they don\u2019t necessarily align with how we view ourselves, causing some concern.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Saving Face: Why Perception Drift & Facial Dysmorphia Are On The Rise<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Dr Kate Goldie<\/a>, an aesthetic physician who has written about this phenomenon, explains that how we perceive ourselves and the ways it can change in moments comes down to what she refers to as our \u2018visual diets\u2019. Just as you are what you eat, you tend to see what you see\u2014or, more specifically, what you\u2019ve come to think of as normal or attractive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a process called \u2018norm-based coding\u2019, where we hold an image for everyone in our brain, including ourselves and the average person,\u201d she tells me. \u201cThese images are constantly updating every time we\u2019re exposed to new faces or different versions of the same face. So, when we\u2019re taking in extreme iterations of faces, it shifts this baseline we have in our heads of what is normal or ideal.\u201d<\/p>\n

She uses the example of the Mona Lisa to demonstrate how this visual adaptation impacts how we assess our looks. In a study<\/a> where two pictures of the Mona Lisa are shown to subjects, one being the original and one where her iconic face has been slightly elongated, people were able to identify the original immediately. But after staring at a hyper-stretched version for 90 seconds, the slightly elongated version appeared to be the correct one. She explains that through a complex set of processes, our brains are naturally drawn to find the medium normal.<\/p>\n

For many of us, we\u2019re able to take in a healthy visual diet, consisting of a diverse range of looks\u2014something that ultimately helps us accept our own. But with the rise of the \u2018Instagram face\u2019 and normalising of filters, our baseline is becoming more and more skewed.<\/p>\n

\u201cGenerally, as we go about our lives, we\u2019re exposed to normal, everyday people in unfiltered states, so it shifts our brains back to an [equilibrium],\u201d she says. \u201cBut if you\u2019re on Instagram, and you\u2019re in an aesthetic bubble because your feeds are filled with filters and fillers, that\u2019s going to have an impact on what you view as normal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite what many self-help books tell us, Dr Goldie explains that this process is somewhat immune to positive affirmations.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t just tell yourself, \u2018I will not be taken in by this,\u2019 because the brain is a system that constantly adapts to the world around it. The average of the features it sees is, to an extent, not a person\u2019s choice, but does have profound effects on their judgement,\u201d she says, likening it to being a bit visually drunk.<\/p>\n

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What\u2019s more concerning is that things are moving faster, and with the normalisation of cosmetic enhancements and filters, our exposure to \u2018extremes\u2019 is beyond common. As a result, our mental averages are getting warped rapidly with the constant barrage of photos, images, and selfies we see\u00a0every day, leading to cases of facial dysmorphia.<\/p>\n

As Dr Jeretine Tan, a clinical psychologist who works with the Centre for Eating, Weight & Body Image<\/a> (CEWBI) outlines, facial dysmorphia is a subset of body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). Characterised by \u201can excessive preoccupation with one or more perceived defects or flaws in one\u2019s own physical appearance\u201d, BDD typically involves defects that, according to Dr Tran, are \u201cnot directly observable or appear only slight to other people.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cGlobal statistics suggest that BDD is relatively common, affecting at least two percent of the population, but is on the
\nrise. A Melbourne-based study in 2021 by Dr Toni Pikoos<\/a> and colleagues revealed that 5-25 percent of people who attended consultation appointments for cosmetic procedures (both surgical and non-surgical) exhibited symptoms consistent with BDD,\u201d says Dr Tan, adding that it can be all-consuming. \u201cIndividuals can become fixated on these perceived defects that they feel define them, and experience chronic feelings of shame, low mood, anxiety, hopelessness, increased social withdrawal and isolation.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a big leap for the sufferer to want to change these flaws, and in 2024, it\u2019s never been easier.<\/p>\n

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Saving Face: Why Perception Drift & Facial Dysmorphia Are On The Rise<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With an indisputable focus on self-maintenance in the last decade, especially as we emerged from lockdowns, demand for cosmetic procedures skyrocketed. Practitioners noted an increase of more than 29 percent between 2019 and 2021, and the request to look not like celebrities but filtered versions of themselves, is occurring more and more. \u2018Snatched\u2019 is the new \u2018pretty\u2019, and if you hadn\u2019t already noticed, there\u2019s a vast spectrum within which we\u2019ve come to define our looks and by which we can alter them.<\/p>\n

This can be a particularly confounding phenomenon for women of colour, especially for those who have come of age under the sweeping influence of Western media. As Samira, 29, tells me, reconciling with her South East Asian appearance took a lot of palate cleansing.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019ll never get being 12 years old and spending a month\u2019s allowance on a concealer,\u201d she recalls. \u201cAll my friends were using it, and even Hilary Duff reportedly didn\u2019t go anywhere without it. But it was a \u2018one-shade-fits-all\u2019 product, and I remember being absolutely heartbroken that it didn\u2019t come close to my skin tone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt really stupid because one look at the product and anyone could\u2019ve told me that that was the case. But in my head, I just thought that a concealer that fit all my white friends would fit me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Western beauty standards have spread far and wide over the last century, especially with the rapid distribution social media<\/a> offers. With an inundation of faces from celebrities and beyond that not only boast augmented appearances but entirely differing genetics, the visual adaptation process for BIPOC can become deeply skewed.<\/p>\n

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Dr Tan, who grew up in Singapore before moving to Australia in the \u201990s, tells me that while there is limited research investigating ethnic disparities in body image disorders, body image dissatisfaction is common for acculturated BIPOC exposed to minimal representation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my opinion, the increased access to and consumption of Western media and technology is likely associated with an increase in comparisons of self and others based on cultural idealisations of physical attributes,\u201d she says, recollecting her own lack of non-Western influences.<\/p>\n

Just as exposure can warp our views, it\u2019s also the key to finding balance.<\/p>\n

In a 2017 study<\/a>, researchers found that humans had inconsistent aesthetic preferences over just two weeks. Asked to rank a set of images by aesthetic preference, subjects then changed their rankings two weeks later. Funnily enough, two weeks is roughly how long it takes for many treatments, such as dermal fillers, to take full effect, which means that by the time one treatment is completed, a patient may want another. Of course, the sheer amount of choice and advertising doesn\u2019t help, but humans are fickle in their preferences by nature, and once you get one thing changed, it can feel like whack-a-mole when your visual diet fluctuates.<\/p>\n

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When these feelings do creep up on us, Dr Goldie recommends taking time to sit on what we see before dishing out the criticisms.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to lengthen the time between looking at ourselves and self-analysis,\u201d she says. As she tries to emphasise with her clients and in her talks, no one is as caught up in the details of our faces as much as we are. And where I see lines in my neck, asymmetrical eyes and a larger nose than average, others see a culmination of my expressions, thoughts and behaviour. They see me. And while \u2018me\u2019 isn\u2019t always what I see staring back at me on Zoom calls, Dr Goldie urges us to take time before labelling our features as different or unpleasant.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, staring at our reflections can actually help us to normalise our features\u2014a method of treatment commonly used with BDD sufferers and even to help limb amputees feel connected to their bodies again. Though there is no \u2018cure\u2019 for finding the odd bit of fault in your face, there is consolation in knowing that you might just be in need of a visual palate cleanse.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":42672,"featured_media":53232,"template":"","format":"standard","categories":[47,35],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Facial Dysmorphia & Perception Drift Are On The Rise<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Facial dysmorphia and perception drift are on the rise, so why are we struggling to grasp what it is we look like?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/me\/articles\/saving-face-facial-dysmorphia-perception-drift-rise\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" 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