Navigating ambivalence
A qualitative study of young fitness self-trackers’ engagement with body ideals through social media
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7787745 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Carsten Stage (0000-0002-7789-4925, Aarhus University, corresponding author), Stinne Bach Nielsen (Aarhus University) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 633-650 |
| Publication date | 2024-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Health An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health Illness and Medicine (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1363-4593 • E-ISSN: 1461-7196 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/13634593231175277 |
| PMID | 37191089 |
| OpenAlex | W4376641463 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 33 |
This article explores how social media are involved in imagining and sensing body ideals among young fitness self-trackers in Denmark (age 15–24). The analysis is based on 20 interviews and contributes to existing research on social media, body image and self-tracking by showing that social media are central for the fitness practices of the participants, but also that gaining access to practical knowledge, motivational material and visual goals seem to be more important motivations for social media use than personal sharing and interaction. Social media are furthermore understood by the participants as unavoidable, but ambivalent terrains in the sense that cognitive and affective benefits, like knowledge or motivation, can only be accessed and felt by handling the risk of also encountering misinformation and demotivating images of idealised or deceptive bodies. The informants legitimise their engagement with social media by positioning themselves as mature media users able to navigate social media through practices of content dis/engagement. The ambivalence of social media is in other words experienced as both ‘elemental’ and ‘curatable’ by the informants; an experience that stresses the need to question the traditional conceptualisation of ambivalence as an inhibition of personal agency and will formation
Ambivalence · Embodied cognition · Misinformation · Social media · Sociology · Structure and agency · Computer Science · Eating Disorders and Behaviors · Impact of Technology on Adolescents · Media Influence and Health · Psychology · Social Psychology
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Medicine 2.0
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Felt and Potential Ambivalence across the Stages of Change
Online Peer-to-Peer Communities in the Daily Lives of People With Chronic Illness
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Aren't These Just Young, Rich Women Doing Vain Things Online
Developing and Using a Codebook for the Analysis of Interview Data
Sociological Ambivalence
Sociological Ambivalence Revisited
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |