Young women no longer compare themselves to celebrities in glossy magazines but fret about how they look on Facebook instead, according to a study. They use pictures on the social networking site to gauge their own appearance and see how they measure up against friends. Facebook consumes 40 per cent of the time young women spend online, psychologists at the University of New South Wales in Australia found. Comparison site: A study found women compared themselves to their friends on Facebook rather than celebrities in magazines . The study, of 150 college students and staff aged 17 to 25, found they read magazines ‘infrequently’ but checked Facebook every few hours. The women preferred Facebook as a means of judging themselves because they could compare their looks with peers similar to them and see how they had changed over time. The research comes the same week as an Australian mother received a poison pen letter from a Facebook friend because of her regular updates about her baby daughter. Jade Ruthven, 33, from Perth, was told she was  'p*****g a lot of people off' with her constant statuses about daughter Addison. Measuring up: Women aged 17 to 25 were found to judge themselves alongside pictures of friends rather than celebrities in magazines . She got her own back on the unidentified 'friends' by forwarding it onto comedian Em Rusciano - who shared it with her thousands of followers on social media. Writing in the journal Psychology Of Women Quarterly, researcher Jasmine Fardouly advised women at risk of low self-esteem to post fewer pictures of themselves online and avoid following people who upload them too frequently.
Australian study found women spend 40% of online time on Facebook.
College students aged 17 to 25 said they read magazines 'infrequently'
Preferred Facebook to compare looks and check appearances over time.