REFRESH YOUR
FEED Anxious adolescents try Instagram’s new settings addressing mental health, safety By Adanna Mbanu, Staff
Top: Sophomore Tess Korte poses with friends. This picture represents the types of pictures Korte used to post. “I felt like I had to wait for big events and that it always had to be group pictures,” Korte said. Bottom: Now, Korte posts pictures that reflect her interests. “Now I just post stuff I like or think is cool or funny,” Korte said.
4 News
H
overing for too long over the share button. Overthinking each post. Constantly checking for likes. Deleting posts that don’t get enough likes. Tess Korte, sophomore, struggled with the pressures of posting pictures for the public eye. The constant stress that Instagram caused Korte led her to make the ultimate decision to delete the app in April 2020. A weight was lifted from her shoulders. Social media platforms have long been questioned for being harmful to mental health. In a recent 2021 report, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy addressed the affects: “Young people are bombarded with messages through the media and popular culture that erode their sense of self-worth— telling them they are not good looking enough, popular enough, smart enough, or rich enough,” Murthy said. Instagram’s agenda has recently been called into question for damaging adolescents’ image of themselves. A former Facebook product manager, France Haugen, told Congress in October that Facebook’s products (Instagram is owned by Meta, formerly Facebook), harm adolescents and the company has been hiding research that shows the app harms teens’ body image and mental health. In response to criticism, Instagram released new features in 2021 targeting teen users, including the
option to turn off comments and likes for specific posts and reminders to take a break from the app. Sophomore Hannah Patel, who has over 3,000 followers on Instagram, took advantage of these new features by turning off the like count for her most recent pictures. “It’s good that they added that you can hide [likes] because I know a lot of people can compare and be like, ‘Oh no, she’s getting more likes than me,’” Patel said. According to head of Instagram Adam Mosseri in a blog post announcing the changes, Instagram’s goal with the added features was to make users feel more comfortable in their own profile when posting. “We know that as teens grow up, they want more control over how they show up both online and offline,” Mosseri said. “So, for the first time, they will be able to bulk delete content they’ve posted like photos and videos, as well as their previous likes and comments. While available to everyone, I think this tool is particularly important for teens to more fully understand what information they’ve shared on Instagram, what is visible to others, and to have an easier way to manage their digital footprint.” These changes are a result of pressure on the company from Congress to address teen mental health and safety on the app. “I definitely think social media affects my mental health because I had to perfect it in order to post it, which is so much
