Are Selfies Fueling A Plastic Surgery Boom?

Over the weekend, Reuters published a report with a modest thesis: Selfies are driving a huge demand for plastic surgery.

The media seems to have largely ignored the rest of the survey's results, which tell us that selfies aren't the main reason people are opting to have more plastic surgery.

The crux of the argument was based on a March report from the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (AAFPRS). The AAFPRS report included this alarmist tidbit: "33% of surgeons have seen an increase in requests for plastic surgery as a result of patients being more self aware of their looks because of social media." That's rightthe AAFPRS suggests that selfiesyour reigning Oxford English Dictionary word of the yearare the reason more Americans are going under the knife these days.

Which is... strange. Reuters' trend piece, titled "Nip, tuck, click: Demand for U.S. plastic surgery rises in selfie era," does its best to build on the report and draw a direct correlation between selfies and the steady growth of the cosmetic surgery industrial complex. The post opens with an interview with a 34-year-old New York woman who recently got a nose job:

"I definitely feel more comfortable right now with my looks," Reynolds explained. "If I need to take a selfie, without a doubt, I would have no problem."

Reynolds is one of a growing number of people who have turned to plastic surgeons to enhance their image. Others are hiring specialized make-up artists in what may be an emerging selfie economy.

More people are turning to plastic surgerythat fact is not in dispute. According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, last year Americans spent $12 billion on snips, tummy tucks, and other cosmetic procedures. It's the second sentence of that Reuters excerpt that should set off alarms. To bolster the claim that selfies are spurring a plastic surgery renaissance, Reuters interviewed a New York-based makeup artist, an editor at CNet, and one lone Manhattan plastic surgeon, who says he has noticed a 25% increase in business over the past two-and-a-half years. But that surgeon did not provide hard evidence of a correlation between selfies and the boom in his business (or if he did, Reuters didn't publish it).

Reuters wasn't alone in making the case that selfies are causing more people to get plastic surgery, though. Quartz also jumped in on the selfie/surgery trend train, suggesting that self-absorbed narcissism could be a generational thing. Here, a choice passage [emphasis is ours]:

Many of the requests come from a generation increasingly defined by social media. Over half of the surgeons surveyed saw a rise in procedures performed on patients under 30, a sign of the impact of platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat on the falling self-esteem of the young.

A rise in plastic surgery by patients under 30 is a sign of the impact of social media platforms? Young people's self-esteem is falling? Those are big statements.

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Are Selfies Fueling A Plastic Surgery Boom?