Name: Ciela Lalvani

Social Justice Group: Body Image and Social Media

Date of Fieldwork: March 10, 2022

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Erin Eichenstein

Type of Fieldwork: Interview

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?[:: :

My group and I help an interview with Erin Eichenstein. Erin Eichenstein works in marketing for facebook and instagram. She talked to us about how advertising on social media has changed through the last 10 years and how there is more diversity, but they are still working on it. She also told us how there has to be certain requirements before posting an ad and how it has to fit the guidelines. One of the things she said is that ads try not so say “you” when marketing things. Towards the end of the interview we talked about goals being set to help fix negative body image standards. The main thing Erin said to do was continue this project because it really helps spread the word by calling out big social media platforms.

One thing that really stuck with me was when she said due to covid teens and kids have had less time to see their friends, therefore they go to social media as a way to stay active. This has overall changed teens mental heath as they spend more and more time on it each day. This really resonated with me because I can see it happening in our generation, and if we don’t try to put a more positive mindset on the things we see on social media, it could affect generations in the future.