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Jane, a 40-year-old mental health professional from Cork, never worried too much about her appearance. But when her job became entirely virtual, she found herself dreading Microsoft Teams meetings. Her face looked rounder, her nose looked bigger, and her upper lip looked thinner than she had ever noticed in the mirror.
“I always thought I was attractive and people always complimented my appearance in person,” she says. “But on video, no one was saying how nice it was to see my pretty face.”
Finally, last June, Jane took matters into her own hands – or rather, her lips – and plumped her crease with putty. She was so pleased with the results that she plans to repeat the process on an annual basis.
As the pandemic brought the masses together in video conferences throughout 2020, researchers noticed a phenomenon they dubbed “Zoom’s dysmorphia.” After months of remote meetings and social gatherings – and seeing their own face on the screen – more and more people have become fixated on perceived physical flaws.
Shadi Kourosh, a dermatologist from Massachusetts, coined the term after her clinic reopened for in-person appointments last summer, when she noticed a dramatic increase in visits for cosmetic procedures such as Botox, injectable fillers, laser resurfacing and chemical peels. She eventually co-authored a study on the trend, which was published last November.
“With all the other concerns we had at hand, I was surprised how worried people were about their appearance,” Kourosh said.
Perhaps even more surprising: Kourosh says that now, with the return to in-person interaction, referrals for cosmetic procedures aren’t slowing down.
In a follow-up study published in the International Journal of Women’s Dermatology, Kourosh and colleagues found that 71% of those surveyed were eager to return to in-person events, and three in 10 intended to invest in their appearance because of this. While these numbers are not solely attributable to Zoom, it is clear that the era of video conferencing has opened a Pandora’s box of physical insecurity.
The “funhouse mirror” effect
While psychological studies have long correlated mirror time with increased insecurity, Kourosh says looking at yourself on a screen is more like looking in a funny mirror than a real one. Front cameras combined with close proximity can distort the appearance of people, making their eyes appear smaller and noses larger. Also, people are not used to looking at themselves looking at other people.
Early on, Kourosh and others noticed an increase in specific concerns that could be attributable to technology-induced distortions. “People were concerned about the wrinkles around their eyes, and this can [have been] because they were watching each other squint in front of the screen, ”she said.
Doctors who perform cosmetic procedures are used to body dysmorphia exacerbated by retouched celebrity photos or, in recent years, by social media filters. But most people are self-aware enough to know that a Snapchat filter isn’t real life. Kourosh says Zoom dysmorphia is more insidious because people just didn’t know video calls can cause distortion. These types of insecurity also affect a much larger section of society – not everyone has a Snapchat account, but almost everyone who worked from home during the pandemic has used video conferencing.
The impact can be deep and lasting. Like Jane, Dimplez Ijeoma, a Los Angeles-based social strategist and marketing consultant in her 30s, didn’t spend too much time in front of the mirror before the pandemic. But once she was forced to watch herself in work-related Zoom meetings for up to 40 hours a week, she began to worry about the texture of her skin.
Running out of cosmetic procedures, she’s tried everything to improve the appearance of her skin – light rings, Zoom filters, even a new skincare routine. The blurring of her skin helped during meetings, but she focused on how she looked after calls.
“When you look at yourself in a mirror after eight hours of using a beauty filter on Zoom, you think to yourself, ‘Oh, I have pores,’ she says.
Some people did not have the ability to change their appearance on the screen. Becky Schwarz, a 27-year-old woman from Washington who works as the director of operations for a career counseling and personal branding firm, was diagnosed with lupus, an autoimmune disease, at the start of the pandemic.
The disease itself triggered significant hair loss, and Schwarz says her steroid medications made her face swell and round. During this time, her diagnosis caused depression that made it impossible for her to shower and take care of herself.
“My appearance was getting more and more popular and the worse I got the more I watched the video of myself onscreen,” says Schwartz.
To avoid being seen on camera, Schwarz started telling people his camera was broken or calling from his phone. When she had no choice, she hung decor on the wall behind her to distract from her face and kept the room as dark as possible. She still refuses virtual social gatherings more than she wants. “Zoom made me want to be invisible, but it’s incredibly lonely,” says Schwarz. “I really don’t know how to get out of the other side of this.”
As she returns to the events in person, Schwarz says her social anxiety and body dysmorphia are at an all time high: “I hate the idea of going out so much and showing people more than I have learned to. control.”
“Zoom made me risk my life for the perfect body”
For some, videoconferencing has exacerbated existing body dysmorphia. Sam, a 28-year-old data analyst from Toronto, says he’s had intrusive thoughts about his body since his mid-20s, when he began to focus on perceived flaws in unique facial features. “I began to constantly stop in front of mirrors or reflective surfaces to confirm if the facial feature really aligned with my mental image of it,” he says. On Microsoft Teams, he found himself “checking mirrors” all day.
Adjusting the angle of its webcam to hide non-existent imperfections hasn’t helped, and Teams doesn’t allow users to hide auto-view. Sam tried therapy for his body dysmorphia, but eventually decided to have his nose done. “I was happy with the results for a few months, but later the dysmorphia reappeared and I found a new defect in the same facial feature,” he says. “I am now on the waiting list for a therapist specializing in bodily dysmorphic disorders. “
Distressed by his appearance at Zoom meetings, Chad Teixeira, a 25-year-old entrepreneur from London, booked himself plastic surgery in Turkey on a whim in March. The 10-hour operation, which included liposuction and a tummy tuck, resulted in a weight loss of almost 90 pounds. But Teixeira also lost a dangerous amount of blood during the operation, and he has had to undergo two blood transfusions since.
While Teixeira says he feels more confident in calls with co-workers and clients – and his mental health has improved due to his weight loss – he says he would do things differently if he had the opportunity. “I don’t think I would have done something so drastic in a whirlwind if I hadn’t looked at myself all the time,” he says. “Zoom made me risk my life for the perfect body.”
Coming back to events in person is like a breath of fresh air for Teixeira. But that didn’t dampen his desire for cosmetic adjustments. He intends to pursue more liposuction and a “fake six pack” afterwards.
Jane, on the other hand, has mixed feelings. Her work will be online for the foreseeable future, and because she feels less attractive on screen than in real life, she is considering rhinoplasty to improve her self-confidence. But resolving her anxiety about her physical appearance arouses its own kind of insecurity, she says.
“It’s juvenile as a 40 year old woman to think of how I look like a teenager because there are bigger problems in the world.”
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