Posting sexy selfies on social media makes you appear "stupid" and "unattractive" to your peers, a new study has claimed.
So next time you find yourself about to share a snap of your bikini-clad self looking super duper hot just remember your female peers will instantly see you as less attractive, less likely to get a job done and not someone they'd want to be friends with. Essentially, you're opening yourself up to a whole lot of judgey face.
The study from Oregon State University suggests women who post revealing pics on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram are viewed by fellow women as less competent and less socially and physically attractive.
Researcher Elizabeth Daniels created two profiles for a fictitious 20-year-old women named Amanda Johnson.
Both profiles were identical apart from the profile pictures.
In one Amanda's profile picture was a photo of her at prom wearing a low-cut red dress with a slit up one of her legs and a garter belt, and the other showed her dressed in jeans, a short-sleeved shirt and a scarf.
Elizabeth then asked 58 girls aged 13-18, and 60 women aged 17-25, what they thought of Amanda when her Facebook profile picture was "sexy", and when it was "conservative".
The experiment found that the less revealing pictures scored the highest in terms of Amanda's perceived physical attractiveness, social attractiveness and task competence.
"There is so much pressure on teen girls and young women to portray themselves as sexy, but sharing those sexy photos online may have more negative consequences than positive," Elizabeth said of her findings.
She advised girls and young women to chose social media photos which showcase their identity rather than their looks.
"Don't focus so heavily on appearance," she said. "Focus on who you are as a person and what you do in the world."
The whole thing gets a lot messier when it comes to picking a pic for your online dating profile...