Social media affordances of ephemerality and permanence: Social comparison, self-esteem, and body image concerns

Instagram provides users with different features, including posts and stories. Instagram post stays on the users’ feed permanently unless the content is deleted. Instagram story has an ephemeral nature as the content uploaded vanishes after 24 hours. This study was designed to examine individual's psychological constructs when using different Instagram features. Instagram usage habits, social comparison, self-esteem, and body image concerns based on user's perception of ephemerality and permanency were examined. An online survey of 224 respondents were analyzed to find significant relationships. Results demonstrated that the perception of ephemerality on Instagram story negatively influenced social comparison and body image concerns. In addition, the longer the amount of time the user spent on posting either a post or story on Instagram, the higher the user was likely to socially compare. Overall, the findings align with previous research, as Instagram users who socially compare are likely to have lower self-esteem and have higher body image concerns.


Introduction
The use of social media are on the rise, making it necessary to understand social media's influence on people.Nowadays, there is increasing number of social media platforms that add ephemeral content as their feature (Choi et al., 2020).Ephemeral content is described as a "time-limited function of social media" and has been rising as the latest marketing and social media buzzword (Chen & Cheung, 2019).These ephemeral social media applications allow content to be shared for a set time limit and then deleted automatically (Wakefield & Bennett, 2018).Despite the increase in new ephemeral features, research focused on how permanent social media forms social comparison, impacts self-esteem, and creates body image concerns (Marengo et al., 2018;Jan et al., 2017), and only a few studies showed how ephemeral content on social media influences people (Choi et al., 2020;McRoberts et al., 2017).This research will focus on the social media platform Instagram, one of the fastestgrowing social media networks (Pineda et al., 2020) The current research also focuses on finding the relationship between Instagram user's patterns of using Instagram and its influence on social comparison, self-esteem, and body image concerns.It examines the different categories, such as content that users upload, usage of Instagram features, reasoning for editing photos, and time spent to upload content.By studying Instagram user's usage patterns, it will help better understand behavioral traits of Instagram users and its psychological impact on them.

Social comparison in social media
Social comparison theory is the idea that individuals determine their own worth when comparing themselves with others (Festinger, 1954).Social comparison can be divided into upward and downward comparison.Upward comparison is comparing themselves with others whose abilities are better than their own (Nortje, 2020).Upward comparison effects on selfevaluations, self-esteem, and in hopes of enhancing their self-assessment (Collins, 1996).Downward comparisons are comparing with someone worse off than the individual (Nortje, 2020) and make the individual perceive to be better off than the comparison target (Wills, 1987).The favorable outcome of downward comparisons is that it produces an enhancement of the individual's psychological state (Wills, 1987).People use social media networks to communicate, build relationships, and share information, however, it led to users making upward and downward comparisons.Upward comparisons create a feeling to envy other lifestyles leading individuals to feel ungrateful for their own lives (Jan et al., 2017).
As social media usage increases, diverse research focuses on studying the relationship between social media and social comparison (Tiggemann et al., 2018;Verduyn et al., 2020).
Social networking content is peer-generated, and individuals can decide how and when they wish to upload it.Although some studies show social comparison increasing subjective wellbeing (Choi & Kim, 2020;Verduyn et al., 2020) and inspiration (Meier & Schäfer, 2018), more studies show the negative aspects of social comparison (Krause et al., 2021;Verduyn et al., 2020).Also, as most social networks are based on likes and comments, individuals are more likely to compare the number of likes to their peers (Tiggemann et al., 2018).
Individuals who have a higher investment in the number of likes are more likely to compare their appearance and have facial dissatisfaction (Tiggemann et al., 2018).
Previous research that on social media and its impact on social comparison focused on permanent social media (i.e., Facebook Post) where content stays on the user's profile persistently (Fox, & Moreland, 2015).Comparatively, there is a lack of research on user's social comparison on ephemeral social media (i.e., Instagram stories).Previous studies showed that ephemerality of social media confers more emotional benefit (Bayer et al., 2016), lowers self-presentational pressure (McRoberts et al., 2017), and reduces impression management concerns (Choi et al., 2020).Similarly, this study will examine whether the ephemerality of Instagram content is negatively associated with social comparison.
Hypothesis 1: Users who perceive Instagram story as more ephemeral will engage in less social comparison while using Instagram.
Hypothesis 2: Users who perceive Instagram posts as more permanent will engage in more social comparison while using Instagram.

Self-esteem in social media
Self-esteem refers to a person's positive or negative evaluation of the self.It is a psychological construct to which an individual determines themselves to be worthwhile (Battle, 1978).There are different ways to describe self-esteem; self-worth, self-regard, selfrespect, and self-acceptance (Robinson et al., 2013).Due to the expansion and concerns surrounding the use of social media, some studies argue that social media usage has a direct influence on self-esteem (Jan et al., 2017).One study showed that editing their post and carefully selecting the information on their social media profile leads to enhanced self-esteem, having higher self-esteem about themselves (Gonzales & Hancock, 2011).Also, individuals who receive positive feedback from friends, such as comments or likes, are likely to affect self-esteem as positive feedback enhances self-esteem, while negative feedback led to decrease self-esteem (Valkenburg et al., 2006).
However, studies also show that social media usage has a negative influence on selfesteem (Andreassen et al., 2017;Appel et al., 2015).While browsing other user's social media, people will start envying other's lifestyles who they view to be superior to them (Appel et al., 2015).Users begin to feel less privileged and inferior to others making upward comparisons.These negative feelings about themselves have a direct impact on self-esteem.
It showed that increase in social media usage would influence self-esteem to decrease (Jan et al., 2017).In addition, high passive use of social media, such as Facebook, leads to higher social comparison, which is also negatively influenced self-esteem (Ozimek & Bierhoff, 2020).Study also showed that social media users were associated with lower state of selfesteem and life satisfaction while browsing others post (Midgley et al., 2020).This shows that social media usage causes users to socially compare, which leads to affect self-esteem.
Most research (Andreassen et al., 2017;Appel et al., 2015;Jan et al., 2017) examines the relationship between self-esteem and social media in general, including all types of social media.However, there is a lack of research on finding the difference in self-esteem while using different perceived social media messages.One study predicts that the transience nature of ephemeral social media promotes greater extraversion compared permanent social media networks.By expressing more positive emotions online, the user's expressed fewer concerns for self-esteem for Snapchat (Bayer et al., 2016).As Instagram stories have a similar ephemeral nature, this paper will examine whether Instagram story users will show less selfesteem compared to when they are using Instagram posts.

Exposure to idealized image and body image concern
Exposure to idealized images and how people consume media has been largely studied in terms of traditional media (Levine & Harrison, 2009: Brown & Tiggemann, 2016), where people were exposed to idealized images of models and celebrities.The studies showed that exposure to thin-ideal images has a negative effect on body satisfaction (Brown & Tiggemann, 2016).However, due to the increase of social media usage and image-focused social media networks, people are now exposed to more of these idealized images not only from models and celebrities but from friends and followers.People are not only exposed to these images, but users also try to create their best selves on their social media pages (Chua & Chang, 2016).This behavior of self-presenting themselves into their idealized self can be found by social media users who post photos such as selfies and edit their photos to upload their best presentation of their appearance.The motivation for this behavior, selfpresentation, can be divided into two.First is to please the audience and match oneself to others' expectation (Lyu, 2016), while the second is to match their ideal self (Goethals, 1987).One study demonstrated that individuals, both male and female, experiment with their online presence and post untruthful information to their profiles (Herring & Kapidzic, 2015).
As exposure of idealized images on social media networks increases, there is a lot of study about the relationship between social media and body image concerns (Brown & Tiggemann, 2016;Marengo et al., 2018;Tiggemann & Anderberg, 2020;McLean et al., 2015).As Instagram allows users to edit their photos to achieve their ideal look, it creates more opportunities for Instagram users to be exposed to idealized images on their social media pages (Brown & Tiggemann, 2016).When regularly exposed to the visual content of others on their social media, this gives more opportunities to compare their appearance, which leads to having negative effects on their body image (Marengo et al., 2018).
Body image is a perception or judgment of an individual's own body (Slade, 1994).This perception is created by an individual, comparing their body with someone else and having positive or negative feelings about their appearance.Social media which focus on visual content (i.e., Instagram) leads adolescents and young adults to express more dissatisfaction with their body images and have more emotional symptoms (Marengo et al., 2018).However, when users are shown paired 'Instagram vs. reality' posts where people upload photos of real images and Instagram -style idealized image posts, people expressed less body dissatisfaction.In other words, this showed that idealized images on Instagram do affect user's body dissatisfaction (Tiggemann & Anderberg, 2020).Another interesting finding was that social media users who are active users showed significant body dissatisfaction and overvalued the importance of shape and weight.Users who invest more time and effort before uploading their photos also showed higher body image and eating concerns (McLean et al., 2015).
Unlike other social media network, Snapchat users tend to send photos of their daily activities to whom they have strong ties especially, their close friends, partners, and family (Piwek & Joinson, 2016).Snapchat users are more effortless when sending photos to their

Social comparison, self-esteem, and body image concern
Social comparison and self-esteem are two primary topics regarding social media usage in general.Most research (Vogel et al., 2014;Jiang & Ngien, 2020) focuses on the relationship between social comparison and self-esteem.This paper also searched for evidence whether people who socially compare more have lower self-esteem.As peeking is one of the primary motivations for Instagram users (Lee et al., 2015), people tend to use Instagram to vicariously experience other's lives and view other's content.Upwards social comparison is a common reaction amongst these people, and users start to envy the lifestyle of others and feel less privileged and inferior.These negative feelings that are formed while using Instagram will have a direct impact on self-esteem.Due to the increase of image-based social media, people focus on posting their best selves on their platforms.As Instagram offers different manipulation tools and filters, people focus on editing and transforming to create a more idealized image (Hu et al., 2014).Viewing other images and socially comparing themselves would lead users to engage in more body image concerns.The research will focus on whether social comparison will influence an individual's lower self-esteem and body image concerns.

Instagram usage patterns
There has been lack of studies regarding how people use Instagram.Although there were studies seeing motivation behind Instagram usage (Lee et al., 2015), few studies only mentioned usage patterns.The types of content people post, features they use, efforts they make to create their content are often mentioned in previous studies that could be related to individual's social comparison, self-esteem, and body image concerns.The category of images that people upload is associated with an individual's personality (Ferwerda & Tkalcic, 2018).Personality also was associated with editing photos, for example, narcissistic people are significantly likely to edit their photos (Kim & Chock, 2017).Studying these elements will reveal how the usage patterns will influence an individual's social comparison, selfesteem, and body image concerns.This present study asks the following research question: RQ: How are people's Instagram usage pattern (use of different features (video, emoji, etc.); categories of content (food, selfie, etc.) that users usually post; reasons for editing photos (slim body, flawless skin, etc.); amount of time to create and upload a post/story) associated with their social comparison, self-esteem, and body image concerns?

Methods
A survey was conducted to examine how perceived ephemerality and permanency of Instagram content differentially impact social comparison, self-esteem, and body image concerns.The effects of Instagram usage patterns were also investigated as control variables.

Sample
A total of 224 respondents who were part of the student participant pool at a university participated in our Qualtrics survey.Out of 224 responses, 205 were valid.Among the participants, 165 were female (73.7%) and 39 were male (17.4%).The average age range was 18-24 as all potential participants were students.About 62.5% were White, followed by Asian (12.1%), and Other (11.2%).The participants, on average, accessed their social media account once a day and spent 1.7 hours a day on Instagram.

Manipulation Check
To ensure the quality of the research study, only active Instagram users were studied and participants who indicated not using the platform were excluded.The first question asked whether participants have ever used Instagram.If they select No, they were filtered out of the data set.In addition, the second question asked how often they access their Instagram account.If they access Instagram less than once a week, they were filtered out of the data set.

Measurement
Participants were asked to indicate the degree to which they agreed to the statements on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly Disagree; 7 = Strongly Agree).

Independent Variables
Participant's perceived permanency of Instagram post was measured by three items adopted from Fox and McEwan (2017).Statements included "It is easier for others to go back and see/check my past posts", "Content I am posting in Instagram post will stay on the platform for a long time", and "It allows me to archive the posts that I perceive as valuable."(M=5.8,SD=0.97, =.756)Participant's perceived ephemerality of Instagram story was measured with two items adopted from Morlok et al. (2018).Statements included were "Content I am posting in the story disappears in a short period of time" and "It would be hard for others to go back to past content that I posted".(M=5.26,SD=1.18, =.688)

Dependent Variables
Social Comparison.Social comparison was measured by six items adopted from Gibbons and Buunk (1999).The items included "I compare myself with others on Instagram to see if I am doing well socially", "I like to find out what others feel/think", and "I am not the person who compares often with others (reverse coded)".(M=4.37,SD=1.079, =.737)Self-esteem.Self-esteem was measured with four items adopted from Robins et al. (2001).Statements included were "I am satisfied with myself", "I take a positive attitude toward myself", "I feel that I am very useful", and "I am displeased with myself (reverse coded)".(M=5.09,SD=0.15, =.903)Body Image Concern.Body image Concern was measured with two statements adopted from the Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire (SATAQ-4) by Schaefer et al. (2015).The two items asked were "I feel pressure from Instagram to look in

Results
To test the hypotheses, linear regression was employed through SPSS examining participant's social comparison, self-esteem, and body image concerns.Participant's gender, frequency of social media usage, and Instagram usage patterns were used as control variables.
A regression analysis was conducted to examine whether the content, usage of Instagram features, the reasoning for editing photos, and the amount of time to create and upload influence psychological traits, such as social comparison, self-esteem, and body image concerns.
Hypothesis 1 predicted that users who perceive Instagram story as more ephemeral, will engage in less social comparison.However, the results of the regression test shows that users who perceive Instagram story as ephemeral are more likely to socially compare (b=.219, p<.01**).Thus, Hypothesis 1 was significant in the opposite direction.To test whether user's perception of Instagram post as permanent affect their social comparison, a regression test was conducted.There was no significant relationship between the two variables (b=.109, p>.05) meaning that Hypothesis 2 was not supported.
To test whether the perception of ephemerality of Instagram story affects an individual's self-esteem and body image concerns, another regression analysis was conducted.However, the results show that there was no significant relationship between perceived ephemerality of Instagram stories and self-esteem.On the other hand, users who perceived Instagram story to be ephemeral are more likely to have body image concerns (b=.179, p<.001***).Therefore, Hypothesis 3 was partially supported.By testing regression between the perception of permanency and individual's self-esteem and body image concerns, the results show that there is no significance between perceptions of permanency of Instagram posts and selfesteem and body image concerns, meaning, Hypothesis 4 was not supported.
In another regression analysis of social comparison on participants' self-esteem and body image concerns, results shows that participants who socially compare while using Instagram are likely to have lower self-esteem (b=-.2, p<.001***) and have higher body image concerns (b=.335, p<.001***).Thus, Hypothesis 5 was supported.
When looking at the control variables, Females were more likely to socially compare

Discussion
Due to the increase of social media usage, its impact on individuals was the focus of previous scholarly research (Marengo et al., 2018;Jan et al., 2017).Previous studies demonstrated that social media usage caused people to engage in social comparison (Tiggemann et al., 2018), by which self-esteem increased or decreased (Jan et al., 2017), and create body image concerns due to the increase in idealized images on social media (Tiggemann & Anderberg, 2020).The present study was designed to examine the effects of social media users' perceptions of ephemerality and permanency of Instagram stories and posts on social comparison, self-esteem, and body image concerns.
The results show a significant relationship between the perceived ephemerality of Instagram stories and social comparison and body image concerns.However, there was no significant relationship between self-esteem and ephemerality perceptions.Contrary to the hypotheses, users who perceive Instagram stories to be ephemeral were more likely to compare and have higher body image concerns.First, the results showed that users who perceive the Instagram story as ephemeral are more likely to socially compare.It could be because Instagram story is used to share the user's everyday moments and highlight their daily activities.The ephemerality feature allows users to share a broader range of content as it is an easy and quick way to share their moments (Morlok et al., 2018).Viewing others' lifestyles can evoke jealousy and envy towards others' lifestyles, which often lead to upward comparison (Jan et al., 2017).The result suggests that ephemerality itself does not reduce social comparison as the current study expected, when the ephemeral features like Instagram stories are used to boost fancy lifestyles, they can encourage even greater social comparison since it adds to the presentation and promotion of the self.
Equivalent to social comparison, users who perceive Instagram stories as ephemeral are likely to have higher body image concerns.This was contrary to the hypothesis that predicted users who perceived Instagram stories to be ephemeral would have fewer body image concerns.Based on previous study (Jan et al., 2017), the present study hypothesized that users express fewer concerns as ephemeral content allows users not to focus on getting pictures of their best selves.However, previous research also points out that social media that focuses on visuals could lead users to express more dissatisfaction with their body images (Marengo et al., 2018).As Instagram stories are also ephemeral social media that uses visual content, this time limiting medium may have encouraged greater body dissatisfaction, especially when users think that they must present their best selves in the transient, ephemeral context.During the regression analysis, the results also showed some features that Instagram users use also influence their body image concerns.Instagram users who use filters and edit themselves for a slimmer body tend to have greater body image concerns.This finding supports the possibility that people are keenly aware of their presentation on Instagram stories even if the content is ephemeral.
In opposition to the significant findings of perceived ephemerality of Instagram stories, there was no significant relationship between perceived permanency of Instagram posts, social comparison, and body image concerns.Previous research studies that examined the relationships between Instagram usage and psychological constructs has mainly focused on Instagram posts as it is the key feature of Instagram.These studies have shown that individuals compare themselves by contrasting the number of likes to their peers (Tiggemann et al., 2018), envying others' lifestyles leads users to have lower self-esteem (Jan et al., 2017), and evaluating their appearance with others evokes increased body image concerns (Marengo et al., 2018).The current study's finding suggests that even though Instagram is used to upload photos or videos and share them with followers or a select group of friends.(Lee et al., 2015), and the heavy Instagram users tend to engage in more social comparison (Tiggemann et al., 2018), how permanent they perceive the uploaded content will be does not influence social comparison, body image concerns, or self-esteem.This may be because users believe that the Instagram content can be deleted anytime if they desire, and the small variance in the perception of permanency does not influence other psychological variables.
Besides examining users' perception of ephemerality and permanency of Instagram, the study also hypothesized that users who socially compare are likely to have lower self-esteem and higher body image concerns.The results supported the hypothesis as individuals who socially compare while using Instagram, both story and post, had less self-esteem and more body image concerns.Previous research mentioned how people make upward or downward comparisons while using social media.People envy others, feeling less privileged and inferior to them, which can lead to negative feelings about themselves (Jan et al., 2017).Social comparison also impacts concerns about their body images.Social media networks allow people to edit and manipulate their photos (Hu et al., 2014), making it easy for people to upload photos of their best presentation.Exposure to the visual content of idealized images gives opportunities to compare their appearance, which encourages people to compare themselves with others and leads to negative perceptions of their bodies.The current result aligns with previous research that social comparison does negatively impact self-esteem and body image concerns.
Apart from the hypotheses, the present study also found results regarding social media usage patterns and whether it influences social comparison, self-esteem, and body image concerns.The types of features, edits, content, and time spent to create content were examined.First, the results show that the longer it takes to create and upload an Instagram post, users are more likely to engage in social comparison and have body image concerns.
Instagram story users who take a long time to create and upload also engaged in greater social comparison.As Instagram, both posts and stories, allows users to edit their photos (Brown & Tiggemann, 2016), users spend more time creating and posting to create their ideal look.
Regular exposure to idealized body images on Instagram will lead users to compare their appearance with others which can influence users to have dissatisfaction with their body (Marengo et al., 2018).
Next, the current study also found that users who edit their content to create a slimmerlooking body, use filters, have flawless skin, and match Instagram filters are more likely to have higher body image concerns.Individuals who are concerned about their body image are likely to focus on editing their appearance to create their ideal look and worry about how they are presented on social media.Prior research suggests that there are two types of motivation for self-presentation, one is to please the audience and the other is to match their ideal selves (Goethals, 1987).Editing their content to create a more idealized look by editing their content shows how individuals' value self-presentation and lead to increased body image concerns.
In sum, even though the current study did not find any significant relationships among perceived permanency of Instagram posts, social comparison, self-esteem, and body image concerns, users who perceived Instagram stories as more ephemeral were found to engage in greater social comparison and have greater body image concern.Control variables such as gender and Instagram usage patterns were also significant predictors of social comparison and body image concerns.Females were more likely to heavily social compare and have greater body image concerns.This finding aligns with previous research studies that exposure to images on social media have a detrimental effect on female's body image concerns.

Limitations
While the current study provides novel information about how different perceptions of Instagram messages influence individuals, the study does come with limitations.As the survey was distributed online, and respondents answered in a less controlled setting, there is a possibility that the participants were less engaged with the survey.This may have influenced the result of the research.Also, the focus of the present study was to examine whether the perception of ephemerality and permanency of Instagram influences social comparison, selfesteem, and body image concerns.However, the measurement items for ephemerality and permanency perceptions consisted with only two or three statements, due to the lack of previous research in this area.As mentioned in the discussion, most users may believe all social media are not permanent as content can be deleted by the users when they desire to do so.In addition, the length of Instagram story has been increased to 60 seconds after our study, so people's perception of ephemerality might have changed in the current state.For future research, better operational definitions of ephemerality and permanency should be employed.
There is a lack of research on finding the difference between Instagram messages, Instagram posts and stories.To create the hypotheses on the perceived ephemerality of Instagram story, the current study relied on prior literature on Snapchat was used as an example as it has a similar ephemeral nature.However, while Instagram stories can be viewed by the same people as Instagram posts, users can designate viewers in Snapchat.
Future research should add privacy perception as a control variable while testing the results.
Previous research shows that individuals express how ephemerality counteracts their privacy concerns as users can control their content viewers (Morlok et al., 2018).It would be interesting to see how exposure to different people and content could potentially lead people to compare themselves with others.

Figure. Model of the effects of perceived ephemerality and perceived permanency
, to uncover how people understand and respond to different types of Instagram messages by comparing Instagram posts and Instagram stories.Instagram post and story are features on Instagram that allows users to share photos or videos with their followers.Photos and videos that are uploaded can be viewed by anyone who uses the Instagram app.Instagram post stays on an individual's profile permanently whereas Instagram story disappears after 24 hours.However, users can pin their favorite moments of their story onto their profile to make it permanent.Unlike regular Instagram posts, users can not like or add a public comment to other users' Instagram stories.By examining whether users perceive these two Instagram messages to be ephemeral or permanent, the proposed study will reveal how different the types of media could influence user's social comparison, self-esteem, and body image concerns.
friends and not focusing on getting pictures of their best selves.As Instagram stories have a similar ephemeral nature (Jane et al., 2017), this paper will examine whether Instagram story users will have fewer body image concerns than Instagram post users.Hypothesis 3: Users who perceive Instagram story as ephemeral will have high selfesteem and less body image concerns.Hypothesis 4: Users who perceive Instagram post as permanent will have low selfesteem and more body image concerns.

Hypothesis 5 :
Instagram users who socially compare more are likely to have lower selfesteem and more body image concerns.
better shape", and "I feel pressure from Instagram to look thinner".(M=5.04,SD=0.5, =.941)Control Variables Participant's self-perception can be affected by a lot of different factors.Participants' sex (165 females, 39 males) was controlled, and participant's number of hours spent on Instagram was measured.The statement used for measuring daily usage of Instagram was "How many hours a day do you spend on Instagram?(30 minutes = 0.5 hour)".The time it took users to create and upload an Instagram post or story was measured with the statement, "How long does it take to create an Instagram post/story?".Instagram Usage Patterns.The following questions were used to measure Instagram usage patterns for both post and story."How likely do you use the following features when posting something through Instagram post/story -Video; Emoji; Doodles; Instant Information (Adding location); Filters", "How likely do you post each category of content for Instagram post/story -Selfie; Food; Friends/Social Life; Pets", and "Please indicate the importance of the following items when you edit your photo for Instagram post/story -Slim body; Flawless skin; Matching Instagram filter; Hide complexation".There were no multicollinearity issues found during the analysis.