Quote:

“Thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse.” (1, Wells/Horwitz/Seetharaman)

Comment:

Quite a few teenagers, more so girls, feel very strongly about their physical appearance out in public. There’s somewhat of a “standard” that most girls think they need to look like to be a good catch, which has caused serious issues mentally for those that have these challenges. When Anastasia Vlasova was only 13, she’d go on Instagram for 3 hours a day scrolling through pictures of chiseled bodies, perfect abs, and women doing 100 burpees in 10 minutes,” she said. It can all be very destructive to the brain and the mental state of that person. There is one issue though that I find with the research found for the study. It states that teens blame Instagram for increased rates of anxiety and depression and that 6% of teens in America, 13% in Britain, had suicidal thoughts because of Instagram. Personally, I don’t think social media platforms are the ROOT cause/reason for rates in anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts unless there is cyberbullying going on. There has to be another reason stemming these issues because no one scrolls through Instagram for hours at a time looking at perfect bodies, and gym pictures. There simply isn’t enough content created for your feed daily by the people you follow to do that. Do I think social media helps these issues… no, but they can’t be to blame. It’s essentially like going up to Mark Zuckerberg and saying, “you’re the reason why I’m depressed.” Now, where can the issues be helped? Social Media platforms like Instagram and TikTok have another place (tab) where you can view content that isn’t from people you follow. And how it chooses what to show you is based on an algorithm you continually make based on what you like. For me on Instagram, I don’t look at much outside the people I follow, but what’s in the other ‘tab’ are pictures/posts of cars, yachts, and sports because that is what I continually like in my feed.

Question:

Is there anything the social media platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, should do about the issues teenage girls are facing?