Proof that Instagram is harmful for teens

NEW documents reveal Facebook knows, in granular detail, just how harmful its Instagram app is for many teenage girls, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

The newspaper shared findings of what Instagram’s internal researchers called a “teen mental health deep dive”, including a study that found Instagram makes body image issues worse for one in three teen girls.

The pressure to look perfect, the tendency to share only the most positive and polished parts of a person’s life, and its addictive nature can send teens spiralling toward eating disorders, an unhealthy sense of their own bodies and depression, according to the article, which references an internal Instagram report from March last year.

Boys are also negatively impacted by the app, with 14% of boys in the US reporting that Instagram made them feel worse about themselves. Most alarming perhaps was an internal presentation that showed among teens who reported suicidal thoughts, 13% of British users and 6% of American users traced the desire to kill themselves to Instagram.

Instagram’s head of public policy, Karina Newton, published a response to the article, in which she writes: “While the (Wall Street Journal) story focuses on a limited set of findings and casts them in a negative light, we stand by this research.

“The research on the effects of social media on people’s well-being is mixed, and our own research mirrors external research.”

Newton adds that “what seems to matter most is how people use social media, and their state of mind when they use it”, noting that “issues like negative social comparison and anxiety exist in the world, so they’re going to exist on social media too”.

“What’s helpful about this new data from Instagram is that it moves us past simplistic conversations about whether social media is good or bad to a conversation about what kinds of social media use are bad and for which kids,” says Michael Robb, of Common Sense Media.

Instagram’s data echoes other research that suggests the app can promote unhealthy social comparisons – or when a person judges their own attractiveness, success and worth negatively based on comparisons with others.

Researchers note that it is hard to tell the direction of the relationship, whether children’s use of Instagram makes them feel worse about themselves or whether children who are already prone to unhealthy social comparisons are going online at increased rates and using it in more problematic ways.

It is developmentally appropriate for children to engage in social comparison, but constant negative comparisons can be detrimental to a young person’s burgeoning self-esteem and social-emotional health. “When the gap between who you are and who you want to be is big, that’s when the mental distress could really kick in,” says Robb.

“Instagram perpetuates the myth that our happiness and ability to be loved are dependent on external things: for girls, it’s appearance, and for boys, it’s financial success,” says body image researcher Lindsay Kite, co-author of The Washington Post