Maleah Williams

Prof. Martin

English 1102

May 6 2019

The Balming of Instagram

Social media has changed the world in such an enormous and drastic way. Ever since the first

smartphone hit the market, millions of people are presently using them and this mass usage has

evolved the way that people communicate and also the way that we spread our thoughts and

ideas to each other. But sometimes that mass sharing is not always good or even what’s best and

can lead others to do horrible thing so to other and even themselves. This reason being why

social media, more specifically Instagram (which is one of the most widely used social media

applications in the world), should take responsibility for the post that their users post on their

platforms especially if it leads to cases of mental health problems and more importantly, suicide

events.

Smartphones are everywhere and they have been permanently integrated in society and even the

world. It has a world of benefits and it makes life so much easier in a multitude of ways. It is

used in everyday occupations, in education and especially in personal life. It makes things easier

to learn and helps people reach other in the blink of an eye. You can share all of your thoughts
and ideas in such a fast and easy way but having this sort of “virtual crutch” can also have very

many negative aspects.

Based on a research article in the Journal of behavioral addictions it is said that, “Due to the

multi-functionality of smartphones, research suggests that smartphones have become a necessity

in the lives of individuals (Campbell & Park, 2008), with 4.23 billion smartphones being used

around the world (Statista.com, 2016). A study of 2,097 American smartphone users reported

that 60% of users cannot go 1 hr without checking their smartphones.” ​ (Lookout Mobile

Security, 2012) There are so many Smartphone users all over the world and people literally

cannot stand not being by them, checking them, having them with them at all times like it's a part

of them. People feel as though they must have their phone with them at all times and when they

don't they feel stressed. This “checking habit” has been chalked up to a basic everyday

compulsion that a vast amount smartphone users have to deal with.

Smartphones have been greatly positively correlated in personality changes and also changes in

the mental health of the people that use it.

“Anxiety is another important psychological trait that has been examined in relation to

smartphone use. Research by Cheever, Rosen, Carrier, and Chavez (2014) found that

heavy and moderate smartphone users felt significantly more anxious over time. They

concluded that dependency upon smartphones, mediated by an unhealthy connection to

their constant use, may lead to increased anxiety when the device is absent. Several
 studies have reported associations between problematic smartphone use and social

interaction anxiety.” (Hussain, Griffiths and Sheffield 2017)

This compilation with the such great usage of smartphones come from the many things that

smartphone can do for people. Music, reading, texting gaming and the most prominent, social

media usage.

Social media usage, like smartphone usage, has been link to a copious amount of mental health

problems, a vast amount present in teens and young adults. In a research article by Jeff Cain, that

confronts mental illnesses and social media usage he cites that,

“Eiser, a prominent "generations" researcher, has expressed concern that the combined

prevalence of smartphones and social media throughout society has created substantial negative

effects on today's youth. She correlates the rise in depression and anxiety with the rise in

smartphone and social media use, citing a trend that shows without exception, the more time

spent on screen activities, the more likely one will be unhappy.” (​Hussain Zaheer 2017)

The more time teens and young adult are on and using these social media apps, the more mental

problem they are seen to have. There are vast amount of mental issues such as “

attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, and depression”

(Hussain, Griffiths and Sheffield 2017)that have been addressed when talking about and linking

them to social media. Problem such as personality changes, which has lead to the increase in

narcissistic tendencies, and also changes in a person's mood and also their amount of self esteem,

which is has been lowered a great amount.

“It is also interesting to notice that through social networking sites such as Facebook individuals

have the ability to 'edit' their identities, by modifying how they portray themselves and changing

their sense of self. One could even argue that this SNS in particular promotes the concept of

deindividuation which allows people who use it to reinvent themselves and experiment with

different types of self-conception.” (​Hussain Zaheer 2017)

People also not being genuine on these apps. They are showing the part of them they want the

world to see and most of the time it's just a mask.

For instance, (Steinfield, Ellison, & Lampe, 2008) found that “ Facebook use led to a gain in

bridging social ties and those users with low self-esteem reported more gains in social ties due to

their Facebook use.” Apps like facebook and instagram, that allow you to post basically anything

you can think to post, has such a negative impact on how you view yourself and feeds into

people wanting the virtual gratification that when not received leads to a even further issues With

anxiety and depression show the biggest impact when it comes to social media usage.

With smartphones come social media and with social social media come the multitude of mental

health issues that have been seen in so many ways but also as an effect of the existence of both of

those is the problem of privacy. The huge lack of privacy is an issue that impacts everyone in

ways that people wouldn't even think was possible. Privacy is a thing of the past and teens and

young adults have been roped into this literal feed of ideas from all types of people and places.

Some of these ideas can be good and motivational and can sometimes help but other times it can

be content that encourage people to do awful things. Those “ideas” users share can come from a
dark place and a mind that has been weakened already by the overuse of smartphones and

mentally straining usage of the social media platform itself can lead to horrible outcomes.

With instagram, this has recently caused big problems, for the lives of a lot of people, and due to

their previous rudimentary guidelines, some whose lives won't ever be the same.

In early February, a man named Ian Russell went to instagram with his concerns. His 14 year old

daughter, Molly ,commited suicide because he “believes that content on Instagram related to

self-harm, depression and suicide contributed to his daughter’s death.”(Jones 2019)

He full heartedly believes that his daughters death was a direct effect of the content that was on

her feed and post that she came across and her has every reason to believe that the fact that

social media positively coordinated with depression and depressed moods. Instagram needed to

do a better job at protecting their users and on February 7, 2019, a week after the incident

occurred, the head of Instagram Adam Mosseri made a change in the platform, saying that

Instagram is officially baring images of self harm so they can further help prevent things like this

happening again.

Instagrams guidelines used to allow graphic images that encourage self harm on there page and

only would remove if it was reported enough times. But now they say that they are “baring”

these images and not allowing images of self harm and cutting on the pages at all.
Instagram is taking steps to stop things like this for happening but all the previous times that this

has happened in the past and even molly themselves, they need to take a level of the blame for it.

Instagrams job is the get people to use there platform so they can receive the funds that they need

to keep the app aflot and relevant but not having these new guidelines in position before could’ve

had a drastic consequences on so many other young teens whose family’s didn’t stand up to

Instagram like Molly’s father did.

There might be people who disagree with the blaming of Instagram itself. They could say that

Molly could’ve choose not to look at that type of content or how again, it’s instagrams job as a

social media platform to allow their users to post their ideas on their pages and also, there was

the proofing method of reporting that could have stopped it but as the argument goes on to say,

Molly is a child that has grown up in generation of technology and smartphones. It is fair to

rationalized that due to the constant bombardment of depression inducing content, paired with all

the mental health problems that smartphone usage and social media is proven to cause, it's very

simply ration for instagram to take the blame for the incidents such as these that have happened.

Instagram is taking steps to help the future users and to protect them mentally but Instagram can

go even further with their guidelines and methods of stopping things like this from happening.

They need to look at reported pages more closely and even if it's reported once they need to

make sure it does or does not belong on their platform and follow the guidelines. They could also

take measures to make sure that from the first download of the app, people know what they can

and cannot post. They have the guidelines and they can read it but they can easily do a quick
summary of the guidelines instead of throwing them in the terms and conditions so that they are

extremely hard to find. They need to make it explicitly clear that it's won't be tolerated that that

content won't be allowed and if they fail to do that, whatever happens because of that failure is

on the app and it's guidelines.

Social media is a big part of our lives and it has changed the way that we do everything. From

learning, to reading, to communicating, to learning, technology had made of daily lives so much

easier but that comes with the price of of our mental health. It put a big strain on our mind teens

and young adults are being targeted much harshly than any other age group. That why apps like

Instagram , which has such a big impact of the lives of teens and young adults needs to take

responsibility for their content and what on their page and also need to understand that whatever

happens on their page is what they basically choose to happen on their because they didn't take

the necessary precautions into stopping such things like bullying, depression and suicide from

happening. Our world is changing so fast and big hitters like instagram should be doing all they

can to protect the new generation from the mental onslaught, technology and social media

causes.
Citations

Ihm, Jennifer. "Social implications of children's smartphone addiction: The role of support
networks and social engagement." Journal of Behavioral Addictions, vol. 7, no. 2, 2018, p. 473+.
Academic OneFile,
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&xid=6d5edb31. Accessed 1 May 2019.

Hussain, Zaheer, et al. "An investigation into problematic smartphone use: The role of
narcissism, anxiety, and personality factors." Journal of Behavioral Addictions, vol. 6, no. 3,
2017, p. 378+. Academic OneFile,
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&xid=6e5ea7fe. Accessed 1 May 2019.

Cain, Jeff. "It's Time to Confront Student Mental Health Issues Associated with Smartphones
and Social Media." American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, vol. 82, no. 7, 2018, p.
738+. Academic OneFile,
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&xid=5f12336b. Accessed 1 May 2019.

Brendenberg, Marja. "THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL MEDIA USE AND

PERSONALITY." Journal of Social and Psychological Sciences, vol. 8, no. 2, 2015, p. 61+.
Academic OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A523795296/AONE?u=cod_lrc&sid=AONE&xid=2efad71c.
Accessed 1 May 2019.

Jacobs , Julia. “Instagram Bans Graphic Images of Self-Harm After Teenager’s Suicide
Instagram Announced That It Would Bar Graphic Images of Self-Harm from Its Site. The
Change Follows a 14-Year-Old Girl’s Suicide That Her Father Linked to Her Exposure to Social
Media Content about Depression and Self-Harm. Credit Dado Ruvic/Reuters Image.”
Newyorktimes, 7 Feb. 2019.

Marino, Amanda. "Social Media: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." Journal of Avian Medicine
and Surgery, vol. 33, no. 1, 2019, p. 89+. Academic OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com.cod.idm.oclc.org/apps/doc/A583655256/AONE?u=cod_lrc&sid=AONE
&xid=6855ebc8. Accessed 30 Apr. 2019