Is Seeing Still Believing? Exploring the Impact of AR Filters on Adolescents’ Trust

Have you ever imagined turning back the clock to your teenage years with just a click? Recent advancements in social media augmented reality (AR) filters, like TikTok’s ‘Teenager Look,’ are making this almost possible. These AI-powered filters can alter users’ appearances in hyper-realistic ways. But in a world where manipulated content is pervasive, can we still believe what we see?

AI-powered AR filters. Remember when AR filters were just about adding dog ears or a splash of lipstick to one’s selfies? Those days of quirky glitches and noticeable mismatches during videos are gone. Today, powered by generative AI, these filters can scan a user’s face, compare it with a vast dataset of images across the internet, and seamlessly morph one’s features in real-time [1]. The recent TikTok ‘Bold Glamours’ filter, for instance, is able to fine-tune facial features to fit conventional beauty standards—like slimmer noses and fuller lips—and is described by users as ‘terrifyingly realistic’ [2], even during facial movement.

The ‘crisis of trust’. Scholars and public observers have warned of a ‘crisis of trust’ [3]. Historically, videos have been the ‘gold standard’ [3] for truth because of the dominance of visual information in judging the veracity of content. However, with the capacity of these filters to modify appearances so convincingly, videos are losing their informational value. As these filters become increasingly integrated into real-time videos and even live streams, the potential for generative AI to produce misinformation grows significantly. This technological leap prompts critical questions: Is seeing still believing when what we see can be so easily manipulated? Can we still trust what we see?

Impact on adolescents. The potential effects might be particularly significant among adolescents, who are in the critical stages of developing their cognitive and socio-emotional capabilities. The blurred lines between real and augmented content could alter their concept of truth and trust. Despite the growing body of research on adolescents and social media, the specific impacts of these sophisticated augmented reality tools—especially on their interpersonal and systemic trust—remain underexplored. For example, will adolescents begin to trust their friends less if they consistently see them in a digitally altered form on social media? Or could their faith in entities such as political institutions and the media decrease if these platforms increasingly feature modified content? To tackle these questions, in my PhD project, my supervisory team and I are committed to investigating how adolescents engage with these AR applications, the potential effects on their trust levels, the underlying mechanisms, and their potential changes over time.

As we delve deeper into the digital age, understanding the implications of augmented reality on adolescents’ perceptions is crucial. If you are interested in discussing this further or would like to stay updated on our research progress, please feel free to reach out!

Weiqi Tian is a PhD candidate at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR) at the University of Amsterdam. Her PhD project is part of the Research Priority Area Youth Digitality. In her ongoing PhD research, Weiqi is exploring the effects of mixed-reality applications (i.e., AR filters and deepfakes) on adolescents’ interpersonal and systemic trust.

References:

[1] Tiktok bold glamour filter: Unrealistic reality and risks (2023, September 25). Banuba. https://www.banuba.com/blog/tiktok-bold-glamour-filter-unrealistic-reality-and-risks

[2] Tolentino, D. (2023, February 28). Bold Glamour: TikTok filter explained. NBC News.https://www.nbcnews.com/news/bold-glamour-tiktok-filter-explained-rcna72485

[3] Hancock, J., & Bailenson, J. (2021). The social impact of deepfakes.Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 24, 149-152.https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2021.29208.jth