How Augmented Reality Beauty Filters Can Affect Self-perception
Open accessAbstract
Augmented reality is used on visual social media platforms such as Snapchat and Instagram with filters that can be applied to the user’s face. These filters detect and transform facial features by overlaying digital masks on moving faces. Augmented reality beauty filters (ARB filters) alter the appearance of the face by conforming it to current beauty ideals. Prior to the development of ARB filters selfies could only be enhanced by retroactive photo editing. However, ARB filters adapt to facial features in real time, resulting in a unique digital beautifying process. This qualitative study explores how the use of ARB filters impacts people’s perceptions of themselves. It is based on online interviews that were conducted with eight individuals. The results are analysed within the frameworks of Extended Mind Theory and Enactivism and indicate that ARB filters may have a greater impact on people’s self-perception than retroactive photo editing.
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Frequent use of beauty filters has already been found to lead to anxiety and depression, reduced self-esteem, body dysmorphia, an increase of plastic surgery, feelings of inadequacy and increased pressure to conform to unrealistic beauty standards.
“Frequent use of beauty filters has already been found to lead to anxiety and depression, reduced self-esteem, body dysmorphia, an increase of plastic surgery, feelings of inadequacy and increased pressure to conform to unrealistic beauty standards [47,50,52,96,99–102].”
From What is beautiful is still good: the attractiveness halo effect in the era of beauty filters (2024) · cites this paper as [50]
Section 2.2 reports lower self-acceptance from using beauty filters to idealize oneself, while section 2.1 describes a possible kind of body dysmorphia and concern about the promotion of plastic surgery. Sections 4.1–4.2 report anxiety in one participant and mixed emotional responses after filter use. The paper does not establish that frequent use leads to depression, increased plastic surgery, or all the listed outcomes; its findings and cautions are narrower than the citing sentence. (LLM, conf=0.88)
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What is beautiful is still good: the attractiveness halo effect in the era of beauty filters
Gulati, A., Martínez-Garcia, M., Fernández, D., Lozano, M. A., Lepri, B., & Oliver, N. (2024) · Royal Society Open Science · doi:10.1098/rsos.240882 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
- Authors
- Isakowitsch, C.
- Affiliations
- University College Dublin (IE)
- Corresponding author
- Isakowitsch, Clara
- Venue
- Communications in Computer and Information Science
- Publisher
- Springer Nature Switzerland
- Published
- 2023
- Pages
- 239-250
- ISSN
- 1865-0929 (ISSN-L)
- 1865-0937
- OpenAlex
- W4321504585
- Cited by
- 25
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 4
- FWCI
- 91.21
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Communications in computer and information science (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Body Image and Dysmorphia Studies
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Augmented Reality Applications
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Innovative Human-Technology Interaction
- Keywords
- self-perception, social media, selfies, beauty standards, image editing, extended mind, enactivism, face enhancement, digital masks
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