Peculiarities of Internet Self-Presentations of People with Eating Disorders
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32626/2227-6246.2022-55.150-172Keywords:
eating disorders, anorexia, obesity, online communication, self-presentationAbstract
The article presents the research results concerning self-presentations of people with eating disorders on specialized Internet forums.
The purpose of the article is to reveal the peculiarities of self-presentation of anorexic and overweight persons on the basis of psychological analysis of their avatars.
Research method is discourse analysis as a tool revealing specificity of symbolic information (avatars, nicknames) to identify the peculiarities of selfpresentation of people with eating disorders.
The results of the research. Avatars of users visiting sites for anorexic and overweight people are analysed from the psychological point of view, the analysed results assert that images used as avatars reflect specific nutritional problems and self-attitude in connection with them. Such sites are visited mostly by the female audience, and hence the problem of standards of a woman body is really important. The main categories of images used as avatars are differentiated to: personal photos; anime characters; food related images; images of well-known people as examples of success; emotionally-coloured images, etc. The differences in self-representations of anorexic and overweight people have been determined on the basis of content, colours of used images, in particular, a more positive self-presentation and self-attitude of people with excess weight compared with anorexics have been revealed.
Conclusion. The article argues that the analysis of avatars' characteristics as a means of self-presentation is useful both for psychological diagnosis of people with eating disorders, as well as for provision of professional psychological assistance for them. Such analysis is appropriate at contact establishing, primary psychological diagnosis and psychotherapy for people with eating disorders combined with chronic dissatisfaction with their own weight.
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