Facebook has assessed the impact of its Instagram social network on adolescent health. The company's specialists conducted an internal study and found out that the application for sharing photos and videos breaks the psyche of children – especially girls. As the interviewed schoolgirls admitted, because of Instagram, they began to have thoughts of suicide. According to Facebook's own data, 40% of the app's users are now under 22 years old.
Facebook's report on Instagram's impact on adolescent health was leaked to The Wall Street Journal. It turned out that its results are largely consistent with similar internal research that the IT giant has conducted in recent years.
“32% of teenage girls said that when they felt bad, Instagram made them feel even worse,” according to an internal Facebook presentation that appeared in March 2020.
Experts emphasized that Instagram forces schoolgirls to constantly compare themselves with other girls and, based on this, form an idea of their own appearance. The researchers cited as an example the story of 18-year-old Anastasia Vlasova from the US state of Virginia. The girl registered on the social network at the age of 13 and spent three hours there every day.
“When I went to Instagram, all I saw were pictures of perfect bodies, perfect abs and women doing 100 squats in 10 minutes,” Vlasova said.
As a result, she developed an eating disorder. Now the girl has to go to the doctor.
Facebook experts became interested in this case and soon came to the conclusion that what happened to Anastasia Vlasova was far from an isolated case. This has been confirmed by other studies that the company has conducted over the past three years. They all argued that Instagram is “bad for a significant portion” of teens, especially girls.
“Instagram has made one in three schoolgirls more difficult to relate to their bodies,” said a 2019 Facebook presentation.
In it, the company reported that adolescents blame the social network for their anxiety and even depression. As stated in one of the presentations, 13% of teens from the UK and 6% from the United States admitted that they had a desire to commit suicide because of Instagram.
Earlier, “Secret” reported that Instagram decided to force all users of the service to indicate the date of birth. The management of the social network believes that such a requirement will better ensure the safety of adolescents when using the application. In addition, the social network announced its intention to make all new accounts of teenagers under 16 closed. Also, now posts and stories in their accounts by default will not appear in the “Interesting” section.
Photo: Pixabay, Pixabay License
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