Apps such as Facetune, Instagram and Snapchat are not only part of the mainstream cultural landscape – they’re also inspiring the latest trends in cosmetic surgery.

At the intersection of technology and beauty lies a new reality where you can change the way you look with a click of a button – or, more accurately, with a tap on an app designed to make you look like a better version of yourself.

Apps such as Beautify and Facetune are designed for quick and easy portrait editing, allowing users to change everything from the size of their eyes to the smoothness of their complexion. These digitally augmented images, which take the concept of photo filtering to an extreme, are how millions of people represent themselves on social media platforms such as Instagram. But what happens when the fantasy of how you look in photo editing apps becomes too tempting not to live out? As new trends in cosmetic surgery indicate, people are getting surgical procedures to look more like they do in the photo-edited versions of themselves on Instagram and in Snapchat filters. And this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

To read the full article on Culture Trip, click here.