A study published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology found that the influence of instagram has a negative impact on people’s self-worth.
The research was conducted by Erica Slotter of Villanova University, and it looked at data from over 2,000 people who have an Instagram account. The participants were between the ages of 18 and 25, and they completed questions about how much time they spend on social media, as well as how much pressure they feel to put pictures on Instagram that make them look good.
The findings showed that people who spent more time on social media had lower self-esteem. This makes intuitive sense — when you spend more time comparing yourself to other people online, you are more likely to feel bad about yourself.
Additionally, the study found that people who felt pressured to post pictures of them that make them look good often had low self-esteem. This is because these types of pictures often make people appear better than they actually are in real life. For example, many people use filters or edit their photos before posting them on Instagram. Also, people can choose what photos they post so that they look their best. When you see other people looking good all the time, it can bring you down if you compare yourself to them.
The more we engage with Instagram business, the more it affects our self-esteem.
How It Affects Mental Health
It’s easy to imagine how the social network might cause anxiety: When you’re scrolling through your feed and stumble upon a beautiful wedding photo, or a picture of a perfect beach vacation, it’s normal to feel pangs of jealousy.
But as Instagram has grown in popularity, mental health experts have found that the app can make people feel even worse about them. A recent study from the University of Sheffield found that Instagram is the most detrimental social media platform for young people’s mental health.
A University of Houston researcher recently asked more than 1,000 adults how they felt after visiting various social media sites. She found that Instagram did not lead to positive feelings for users, unlike Facebook and Twitter.
A study from the University of Strathclyde in Scotland asked nearly 2,000 people about their use of social media and their mental health. The researchers found that users who engaged in high levels of visual content creation on Instagram were at greater risk for anxiety and loneliness.
Is It Changing Our Perception of Reality?
We’re all familiar with the phenomenon. You scroll through your Instagram feed and see celebrities looking flawless, people you went to high school with vacationing in exotic locales, and friends with seemingly perfect lives. The problem is that none of these images are a true reflection of reality.
The problem is that none of these images are a true reflection of reality. Reality is messy and imperfect, but our brains have become so used to seeing filtered and angled photos on social media that we’ve started to believe that’s what real life should actually look like.
“We’re not seeing real life anymore,” said Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google parent company Alphabet, at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month. “What we’re seeing is a picture of real life created by an algorithm to make us feel good.”
And it’s not just social media perpetuating this distortion. In recent years, there’s been a trend toward taking photos from oddly angled perspectives, which has given rise to new terminology like “bird’s-eye view,” “dutch angle,” “low angle” and more. These shots — usually taken from above and at strange angles — distort perspective and color in order to create an aesthetically pleasing visual effect.
Why Have We Become So Obsessed With It?
We’ve always been a society that values appearances, but our recent obsession with Instagram has taken that idea to a whole new level.
There’s an undeniable satisfaction that comes with getting a lot of likes on your latest Instagram post. You see all those double-taps and you can’t help but smile — it’s like hearing the applause of a crowd, but in a virtual arena.
Instagram is breeding self-absorption. Our Business generation has become obsessed with taking selfies, and we go out of our way to take pictures in places that look good so we can post them on social media. We’ve become so narcissistic, and it’s all because of Instagram
This isn’t just my opinion. Numerous studies from theslientnews.com have found that our obsession with social media is causing us to become more narcissistic and self-obsessed than ever before. It’s also making us feel insecure about how we measure up against other people online.
