Mouth tech, particularly in developed markets like the US and Europe, is having a moment. And high-powered toothbrushes are just the tip of the dental pick. Consumer health companies are pitching portable water flossers, dental floss subscriptions, at-home LED whitening kits, and direct-to-consumer smile aligners. The global oral care market is projected to grow to nearly $41 billion by 2025, up from $28 billion in 2017, according to Grand View Research.

It’s both a digital phenomena—our collective obsession with self-presentation has driven us to swipe and whiten our smiles before pressing “send”—and one in which the physical goods we buy to clean up our mouths every day are being upgraded with a dose of technology.

“Social media and the internet more generally provides a way for us to examine our appearances a little bit more,” says Charlotte Markey, a professor of psychology at Rutgers University who researches body image and eating-related behaviors. The hashtag #teethwhitening brings up a mere 1.7 million results on Instagram, many of them before-and-after photos, while searching Google for the phrase “How to brush your teeth” results in hundreds of thousands of YouTube tutorials.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.wired.com