Dr. Mary Aiken:

With the crowdsourcing of self-esteem, we have to be protective of children as they are going through critical development phases such as identity formation, which happens between nine and 14 years of age. In the case of a child on a social media platform, before he or she has discovered who he or she is and is reconciled with himself or herself, her or she is creating versions of self. For example, are committee members the same person they are on LinkedIn, on Facebook or on Instagram? The child is creating this artefact of self, this curated, heavily manipulated entity. The Royal Society for Public Health report made a recommendation that images manipulated online by means of filters, such as showing brighter skin, shinier hair, or stretched to be five pounds lighter, should be flagged to ensure children are not looking at these images feeling their friends look better than them and they are not pretty enough.