instagram may be worse for girls than we thought: experts

on instagram, “harm is occurring on a massive scale,” social psychologist jonathan haidt lays out in a blistering article in the atlantic . the statistics are worrying, he says, and instagram is the clearest culprit.

there are a variety of harmful aspects to instagram, an app that allows users to post their own photos and short videos, and to see posts from friends, brands and celebrities. there’s also an explore page, curated with suggestions based on users’ interests. the biggest culprit is damage the app can do to young girls’ body image. facebook’s internal research, which was leaked to the wall street journal by a whistleblower in september, found that one in three girls felt worst about their bodies when they used instagram.

boys feel pressure, too — 14 per cent of american boys said they felt worse about themselves after using the app. but girls are particularly affected in part because they’re the main users: according to pew research , girls are more likely to use visually-oriented social media platforms, including snapchat, pinterest and tumblr in addition to instagram — 61 per cent of girls use instagram, compared to 44 per cent of boys. and more than 40 per cent of instagram’s users are 22 or younger.

that online exposure has real-world consequences. hospital admissions for self-harm doubled for girls between 10 and 14 from 2010 and 2014, at a time when there was no significant increase for boys, men, or women in their early 20s. this is true in the u.s., canada , and the u.k.

instagram had been ranked the worst all for young people’s mental health in polls as far back as 2017 . one of its other worst qualities, according the journal , is the way it invites users to compare their own bodies, or their own lives, to what they see on the app. the explore feature is especially problematic in that it tracks what users look up and feeds it back to them. this can be great, like when fans of an artist or a meme page are exposed to similar artists, or similar humour accounts. but it can also be damaging, like when a young girl looks at one fitness influencer, and is gradually shown more and more accounts dedicated to weight loss or impossible bodies, leading down to a rabbit hole of disordered eating content.

and facebook knows all this, but refuses to make significant changes, according to frances haugen. the former facebook employee spoke to and shared internal documents with the wall street journal anonymously, but later revealed her identity.

“the thing i saw at facebook over and over again was there were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for facebook,” haugen told cbs in a 60 minutes interview. “and facebook, over and over again, chose to optimize for its own interests, like making more money.”

“to some extent, the way these dynamics play out on instagram is just a natural extension of how girls are treated in our culture anyway,” lindsay crouse writes in the new york times . but it’s the most powerful tool of body pressure, more omnipresent than any one movie star or women’s magazine. and as crouse points out, it’s telling that many silicon valley executives don’t let their own children use the technology they develop.

“her friends who don’t have it say to their parents: ‘we don’t know what anyone’s talking about because we’re the only people who aren’t on instagram,'” toronto mom melissa marazzi told huffpost canada in 2018. “everybody’s going: ‘did you see that post, did you see this post?’ they feel so removed from everyone.”

part of the problem, too, is the nature of social media itself. “we have to acknowledge the broader point that instagram and other social media apps are designed to keep people using them for as many hours as possible, because that’s how they make the most money,” jean twenge, who collected data with haidt for the article in the atlantic, told time magazine . “that means you’re going to have a collision between what’s good for mental health and what’s good for profit.”

this kind of report on social media led to cosmetics brand lush shuttering its instagram, facebook, tiktok and snapchat accounts. (the brand is still active on twitter and youtube.) lush’s “global presence across these platforms will remain deactivated until the platforms take action to provide a safer environment for users,” the company said in a press release monday.

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