Instagram, influence and depression
It all started when I walked into a second-hand store to buy a pot for my plant. The expedient noted my T-shirt and asked if I came from the university. I talked a little about my background in data science, and she spoke about how the store runs a centre helping young girls with mental health issues. Then I remembered that Frances Haugen had recently leaked an Internal study at Meta documenting how harmful Instagram is, and the conversation fell on how social media may be to blame for the rise of mental health problems among young girls, a phenomenon often noted but poorly understood at the centre. I promised to look into it. This article results from my findings as I went down the rabbit hole of Instagram, mental health and the world of influencers.
First, I present the leaked study, then some more independent studies to clarify the science. Then I attempt to explain why Instagram is so bad before I go over Meta’s defence against the accusations made against their product. Finally, I discovered that there are ways to use Instagram without the negative effect, and I tried to give some advice on how you can improve your own Instagram experience.
If you yourself do not use Instagram, but your children do, I highly recommend that you discuss some of the topics in this article with them.
The whistleblower
Frances Haugen, a Meta whistleblower, leaked an internal investigation to Wall Street Journal containing this slide from Meta's own internal investigation on whether their Instagram was damaging to young people's mental health.
The numbers speak for themself better than I can describe them. Around half of Instagram's users have some negative social comparison, and a small portion has self-harm and suicidal thoughts starting on the platform.
Social media and Instagram, in particular, have long been criticised for being a possible factor in the rise of suicide and self-harm among young people. Personal stories such as Molly Russell, a British teen who killed herself after Instagram promoted posts about suicide for her, have fueled those theories. However, this is the first time we have data proving empirically that Instagram causes self-harm and Suicide thoughts for at least some of its users.
Independent studies
Other official studies also link Instagram to various mental health problems. A report by the Royal Society for public health declared Instagram the worst social media for young people's well-being based on an overall evaluation of several parameters that shows that Instagram both have positive and negative effects (but mostly negative)
A Danish report commissioned by Nordisk Minister råd found a statistical correlation between Instagram usage and decreased life satisfaction and negative social comparison in teenagers between 14 and 19.
A US study concluded a similar claim of a relationship between depression and Instagram usage among young people with the extra detail that they clearly showed that the more you use the app, the worse the effect is.
The philosophy of pain
One thing is a statistical correlation, but we also need a causal explanation; I am unfortunately not a trained psychologist, but I can offer this peace of street philosophy.
After Buddha had achieved enlightenment, he formulated the four noble truths. The second of which states:
All of humanity's suffering originated from desire
Not only Buddhism but all major religions and most philosophical schools will tell you the same: unchecked desire will only bring you pain.
This we need to understand to see why Instagram bring so much pain to its users; Instagram is a magic mirror showing you all your desires: the perfect body, partner, holiday, and all the material possession that your heart desires, presented as a beautiful dream that slowly turns to pain as soon as you compare it to your realty.
By having a dream you can’t archive, you will live all your life in suffering. The philosophers would say the antidote is contentment, but the enlightenment of contentment takes years to archive; for now, all you need to know is that the people who are seemingly living the dream are themselves trapped in the nightmare, the girl who edits her photos will never achieve her beauty standard. The guy whose luxurious lifestyle is not built on a sustainable economy will live in fear of the day the bill comes due and he loses everything. And the Influencers that know that most of her followers were brought for 0.002$ each will never feel truly loved no matter how much online attention she gets.
Are Instagram to blame
Meta does not take the kind of criticism in this article lying down and would probably call me overly critical or hysteric.
They will point out that the subject is not properly documented, there’s doubt about causality, and Instagram has many positive aspects.
Some of it is strategies taken from the tobacco industry, such as pointing out that most Instagram users are doing fine every time they are confronted with evidence of their product killing people.
In response to Frances Haugen’s claims, Meta released a block stating that most Instagram users in the leaked study had a positive view of Instagram’s effect on their well-being.
There is some truth to the statement and some evidence of positive effects. The tricky thing about saying anything about Instagram is that everyone gets their own individual feed presented by an algorithm. So I guess most Instagram users don’t get harmful content, and it is entirely possible that you read so far in the article and thought to yourself: “ I used Instagram for many years and can not recognise any of the issues in this article”. The problem is that most users doing fine doesn't change the fact that some suffer.
It seems like there is a right and wrong way to use Instagram, which is why this article doesn’t end with a #DeleteInstagram but instead with a guide to get the positive without the negative.
Meta will also point out that the statistical significance for the correlation between Instagram use and depression is low when looking at all the studies of all Instagram users. This is real in the sense that Instagram has little impact on older people’s mental health. For example, the Danish report found that Instagram only with statistical significance (p<0.1) had a negative effect on life quality and social comparison of teens between 14 and 19. For young between 20 and 29, the effect was almost non-existing and not significant. Thus, in studies that include users of all ages, it is possible to hide the significant level of harm done to young users by taking the average over all users to get a much lower effect.
Another fact that Meta and many of the reports point out is that it is the first lesson of every statics class: correlation does not equal causation. This means we can not say if Instagram causes depression or if depressed people use Instagram more.
In Meta’s leaked study, there is some evidence that Instagram is the cause since the study asks if the feeling started on Instagram.
As someone with a background in AI, I have my own thought experiment on this question: If we have the assumptions that the Instagram recommendation system is built on state-of-the-art reinforcement learning and that depressed people spend more time on Instagram. Then it should be assumed that when optimising engagement, the system will learn to make users depressed to maximise the time they spend on the platform.
This is, of course, purely theoretical, yet there is plenty of evidence of similar systems on Facebook and Youtube that learned themself that spreading fake news gives more engagement than the truth.
How to use it right
The Danish report had a section where they investigated what activities on Facebook were positive and negative, but the lessons learned can also be used on Instagram.
It defines two forms of way to use social media: Active usage and passive usage.
Active usage is largely correlated with positive emotions and includes activities such as chatting with friends, commenting on posts, and sharing your content and links you like.
Passive usage is where you find the most negative effects on mental health and time consumption. Passive usage: includes scrolling through a news feed or other people’s profiles.
This does make Instagram's main page one of the best social media since it is possible to reach the end of your news feed with the message: “You’re all caught up.” thus reducing passive usage once you have seen what all your friends have posted.
On the other hand, the explore page is an endless place of passive usage, almost guaranteed to steal your time and, most likely, your happiness.
As mentioned, the algorithm will take you to whatever place makes you stay. For some people, it is filled with cute pictures of animals; for others, it's a meme side, but it can also be a toxic place of self-doubt and fake reality. So in general, I would advise you not to go there. If you go there to pass the time, just remember that even though what you see appears fine, the algorithm is not your friend.
It is also important to think about what kinds of people you follow and thus will be shown on your main page.
You should be fine if you only follow people you know in real life. Even if they keep posting about their perfect life, you should know them well enough to know that all is not perfect beneath the surface. The problem is all the people you don’t know in real life.
A good philocaly question is asking yourself is :
how many friends it is necessary to have?
I am sure you will find that using Instagram to keep in touch with a few good friends is more valuable than having thousands of followers.
So ask yourself, for each person you follow that is not a part of your offline life: does this person bring any value to your life?
If a person only pretends to be your friend to sell you overpriced products, that's not friendship; that’s manipulation. The same goes for people pretending to live a perfect life or care about all the right social causes. Getting rid of those people would greatly improve your mental health.
Finally, always remember that not everything online is true.
