The Perfect Illusion: A Bibliometric Review of Social Media, Body Image, and Aesthetic Behaviors

Abstract

This bibliometric review maps the intellectual and thematic organization of research on social media, body image, mental health, and aesthetic behavior, combining descriptive indicators with author co-citation and keyword co-occurrence analyses of 259 Scopus publications selected from 325 retrieved records. The corpus shows annual publication output reaching 55 in 2025, with the largest reported affiliation-based contributions coming from the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom. The networks connect strands concerning appearance comparison and body image, psychological and behavioral concerns, and positive body image and prevention, thereby characterizing scholarly attention while substantive findings are interpreted through the designs and populations of the cited studies. Because the review encompasses adolescent, young-adult, and adult-focused scholarship, population-specific interpretation informs the use of this map as an organizing framework for research on content, forms of engagement, cultural context, and protective approaches. The resulting policy and practice agenda identifies appearance literacy, sponsorship disclosure, cosmetic-procedure promotion, and recommendation pathways as subjects for direct evaluation, connecting research priorities while maintaining distinctions among bibliometric relationships, study-level evidence, and prospective policy assessment.