The Guardian:
For a growing number of users – and mental health experts – the very positivity of Instagram is precisely the problem. The site encourages its users to present an upbeat, attractive image that others may find at best misleading and at worse harmful. If Facebook demonstrates that everyone is boring and Twitter proves that everyone is awful, Instagram makes you worry that everyone is perfect – except you.
“On the face of it, Instagram can look very friendly,” says the RSPH’s Niamh McDade. “But that endless scrolling without much interaction doesn’t really lead to much of a positive impact on mental health and wellbeing. You also don’t really have control over what you’re seeing. And you quite often see images that claim to be showing you reality, yet aren’t. That’s especially damaging to young men and women.”
Much like Twitter and Facebook, Instagram is what you make of it. I don’t see any of these “feel good” posts because I don’t follow those kinds of Instagrammers.
Agreed on your comment, natch; if kids have awful social media experiences, it’s because their peers are horrible, and because they’re teenagers, and life is often awful then, no matter what.
Beyond that, eh, Guardian clickbait.
(“Oh, an advocacy group “charity” that wants attention did a survey, and it turns out the solution is Concerted Action For A Serious Problem, what a surprise.”
Their report doesn’t seem to mention serious methodology, and other searches show them, no shit, using SurveyMonkey, so it looks like this was a … self-selected sample.
And they didn’t have the wording or an obvious link to it in their report.
Because this is not science, this is advocacy. I’d be shocked if they didn’t plan for a “social media needs to be curbed” result before even starting.
Distrust them, and distrust the Guardian [quelle surprise!] for falling for it hook, line, and sinker.)
Because looking at the results, it looks like “kids in the UK are awful savages and they bully each other online anywhere they get a chance to”.
So, basically, they’re just like kids everywhere; there’s always someone who wants to be a shit to people.)
I know someone whose 15-year-old daughter posts pictures on Instagram of herself in her underwear, yet gets distressed when the attention she gets from boys is less than polite.