Katherine A Phelps ’13MA, a graduate of the Master’s in Gender and Cultural Studies at Simmons, has published her first book, Digital Girlhoods (Temple University Press, 2025), exploring the potential pitfalls and opportunities for tween girls engaging in social media. We spoke to Phelps, now a Teaching Faculty member in Gender & Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in advance of her book discussion at Simmons on April 28.
“I’ve always been really interested in body politics,” says Katherine Phelps ’13MA. “In the broadest terms, it explores how our bodies experience social institutions in relation to our identities.” She focused on the topics during her Masters in Gender and Cultural Studies. “Starting my graduate level work at Simmons really lit me up. I thought, ‘these are the kinds of questions I want to ask for the rest of my life.’”
During her doctoral work, her interest in body politics converged with her interests in digital media and social media. Her book, Digital Girlhoods (Temple University Press, 2025), which emerged from her research, delves into the social media use of tween girls.
As a millennial who engaged in early iterations of social media in her late teens, Phelps sees the impact that growing up with social media has had on younger generations. “This dynamic of what we deem to be our offline selves vs. our online selves is different for Gen Alpha [the generation of people born between 2015 and 2030] and Gen Z [born between 1995 and 2014],” says Phelps. “It’s important to recognize that they are not distinguishing between online and offline personas. [Social media use] is very normalized, a part of their everyday life.”
While children under the age of 13 aren’t technically allowed to have their own social media accounts, many of them have access and post regularly. “Adult-centered responses to this tend to be quite alarmist,” Phelps notes, citing news stories and studies decrying the negative influence of social media on children, especially girls. “A lot of attention is paid to the disproportionately negative outcomes [ie, online predators] for this particular population of people. For that reason, I wanted to hear from tween girls themselves about how they are using social media and how they are characterizing those online relationships.”
Am I Pretty or Ugly: Attention-Seeking or Authentic?
Though not a social media user in her formative years, Phelps pulls inspiration from her own experience as a tween before modes of digital engagement became commonplace. “I was still existing in that space, that nexus of childhood and adulthood. I was interested in celebrities and trends and popularity. [I experienced] the desire to be seen — none of that is new. The medium in which it is being explored is new and we are still learning what that means.”
Her research, as represented in her book, Digital Girlhoods, focused on 260 examples of the “Am I pretty or ugly?” trend of videos posted by tween girls on YouTube, asking viewers to weigh in on their looks in the comments section. Phelps also conducted in-person interviews with a select group of tween girls who had access to online devices and engaged in social media (both viewing and posting), and gathered their responses to the “pretty or ugly” videos.
While none of the tweens she interviewed had posted “Am I pretty or ugly?” videos to YouTube, they had their own complex responses to them. “What I found was a really interesting tension,” says Phelps. She discovered that her interview participants usually assumed that the girls in the videos were actually confident in their looks and simply eager for attention (which was seen as a negative) unless they were self-effacing, engaging in negative self-talk. “Then she was seen as authentic,” says Phelps. “Confidence was perceived as a character flaw.”
The pretty/ugly video trend received a panicked backlash in mainstream media (including, but not limited to, coverage on CNN, New York Times, Slate, and HuffPost), who used the videos as proof of the damage social media has on the self-esteem of these girls. Phelps is more cautious about condemning social media for all its perceived evils. She saw the trend as a new iteration of traditional tween anxiety.
“[In the videos], we’re seeing girls recognizing that how they look is really important. That’s heartbreaking, but it’s not because of social media. Girls have been asking this question for a long time, but the platform on which they are asking it is new. That’s interesting and worthy of our investigation, not our alarmist response,” Phelps explains. “And why is it happening? Because being [perceived as] pretty is still really important. We may not like it, but aesthetic capital is still really important. We need a more intentional look at the social and cultural conditions that brought this trend to light.”
To that effect, Phelps touches on the paradox of modern American girlhood. “To be a girl today is a shifting state of empowerment and disempowerment. You are told that you are ‘already good enough as you are,’ but we are also going to sell you anti-aging cream. We are going to limit you, define your virginity in this way, police you outside of the home, and make you smaller in classrooms. We will tyrannize you with the mandate of slenderness. What social media can demonstrate is that there is a rich tapestry of experience and interest [among tween girls]. It’s not all resistance [to the status quo] but it's not all accommodation, either. They are using social media to navigate that, and it’s important that we pay attention.”
The use of social media increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Phelps sees this usage as a lifeline for youth. “We were asking young people to carry a lot of responsibility, in ways we still haven’t fully processed,” she says. Research shows that peer influence becomes paramount to social development, particularly for the pre-adolescent and adolescent age category. “Young individuals needed to stay connected to their communities and find levity and humor while things felt really out of control. Those Snapchat [another social media app] circles were important!”
Phelps sees the idea of taking kids off of social media as idealistic. “People say, ‘we want them to go outside more,’ but I don’t see [limiting social media] as the way to do that. I don’t have issues with setting boundaries and limits [on social media use].” Phelps addresses her concerns, such as the spread of misinformation on social media, the use of algorithms, and the fact that corporations own all the posted content. Still, she believes that addressing these issues requires more nuance.
“I want to look at the social conditions surrounding girls’ social media use and clarify for us how and why they are using it. If we know that, it can help us implement policy strategy and digital literacy skills for tween girls to really benefit from these platforms rather than fear them. [To ban girls from social media] feels like a straightforward continuation of gendered oppression.”
The (Historical) Obsession with Female Bodies
It’s useful, in this case, to remember the history.
Facebook began in 2004 as an appearance-ranking platform for college students, before becoming a gigantic social media presence. YouTube was developed in 2004 in the wake of Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” at the Super Bowl halftime show. “That moment had more internet searches than the 2004 election and the Mars rover, combined,” says Phelps. “People wanted to see that moment again.” This inspired three programmers to create a platform in which pieces of digital video could be isolated and viewed on demand, and on repeat.
Thus, the birth of these platforms focused on female bodies. “Now this is having magnifying effects on female bodies, and female experiences of pressures around appearance,” says Phelps. “The surveillance and expectations of female-presenting bodies [vs. male bodies] is very different. We sell beauty and body work to girls and women. They are targeted as consumers.”
However, Phelps has also found a source of resistance in social media, where girls, queer people, and marginalized communities have found representation against dominant narratives and market forces.
“For girls and women, body dissatisfaction didn’t come to us from social media,” says Phelps. “That’s a century old, at minimum. Social media is the only place where I have seen a concentrated resistance to that, with body positivity and body inclusivity.” Now, a broader variety of bodies are represented across advertising, perhaps in response to these movements. “Girls are connecting to each other [via social media], getting education around their bodies, menstruation, and sex in a way that school systems may have been failing them. They are also engaging in their interests and hanging out with their friends [online].”
While stories of online predators are troubling, Phelps is frustrated by the perception that girls online are inherently at risk, or else bound to be reckless. “When we say to a twelve year old girl, ‘you can’t participate in this because we don’t know who’s watching,’ we’re putting the onus entirely on the girl.” In effect, this makes the subject of her sexuality, and the potentially voyeuristic attentions of men and boys, the fault of the girl. “Girls have been sexualized for centuries. This is not springing from social media.”
Do We Protect Girls or Police Them?
While Phelps agrees that social media participation should be regulated for those under the age of 13, she is concerned about the bill recently passed in Australia, banning social media accounts for anyone under 16 years old.
“Children are aware of these platforms. The assumption that they would not be curious about them is really striking,” she notes. “Social media is an opportunity for visibility and identity development. The girls [I interviewed] are not naive. Every girl I spoke to had an internalized fear of the specter of the creepy old man [watching them], because that’s the narrative we’ve given them.”
Phelps notes that tweens have long engaged in “unregulated” behavior as part of their social development: taking photos and experimenting with cosmetics and wardrobe. “The girls I spoke to were thoughtful [about social media usage]. They’re being playful, learning about the world, and navigating tensions with friends. They want the chance to self-represent on social media. Whether or not we like that content, or whether it should be posted publicly, is another story and an opportunity for conversation. There is so much power and potential in the digital space. There is also a tangible impact of saying that this is not a space for you by virtue of your age and gender.”
Phelps says that her approach to allowing tweens to engage in social media has been called “radical” for its lack of alarmist language. “I think what I’m saying is quite nuanced,” she says. “Social media is a reflection of social life. There are potential harms — bullying and drama — and the girls [I spoke with] talked about all of those things. They also [use social media to] connect with their friends, engage in their interests, and have fun.”
In Phelps’s view, whether or not social media is a net negative or positive can’t be determined now, as it hasn’t been around for long enough to fully understand the repercussions of how people are using it. However, there are gendered realities of how boys and girls are using social media, which merits further research.
“We need to have meaningful dialogue that facilitates and magnifies the benefit of social media, because I think there is quite a bit of benefit. If the answer is to pull girls offline, it reinforces the narrative that girls need to be protected, that their innocence needs to be maintained. At the same time, we’re selling the idea of “Girl Power!” and telling girls that they can do anything their male counterparts can do.”
Herein lies the disconnect between what adults — from parents to mainstream media portrayals — tell girls, and what they actually believe. Ironically, many of the girls in question already have a “digital thumbprint” of their childhoods, through social media posts authored by their parents. “[The girls I interviewed] have a savviness and understanding [of social media]. When we give them some semblance of control over their own participation and representation, that’s when we panic. We need to engage in that dialogue.”