Author(s): Muhammad Awais, Khadeeja Maqbool, Farahat Ali, Tayyab Farooq Bhatti
Social media use has become integrated into the lives of youth around the world, with 81% of adolescents reporting using them. The unique features of this usage include the exhibition of visual images which also shifted the focus of many scholars to study the physical appearance preferences of adolescents. A recent trend has observed the posting of increasingly sexualized photographs on social media. Significant literature has been found about the self-sexualized behavior of the adolescent girls on social media. Adolescent males’ self-sexualization behavior preferences have yet to be fully explored. This study attempted to explore the relationship of social media use (IV) and self-sexualization behavior (DV) by taking into account the mediating roles of Internalization of reward beauty and selfobjectification. The present study used purposive sampling to draw a sample (n=500) of male students from different universities of Pakistan. In the second model testing, the ‘Appearance conversation on Facebook and Instagram’ has been taken as IV to explore the same relationship. The results found that self-objectification is positively related to selfsexualization behavior among male students. The study also discussed the other mediating roles and concluded with a comparison between male and females students’ selfsexualization behaviors on social media by seeking help from the previous literature and the current findings.