Social Media Seriously Harms Your Mental Health, Right?
Boasting over one billion users (yes, that’s billion with a “B”), Instagram is one of the most popular social networking sites of today. Released in 2010, the platform has seen various updates, meme trends, and removed features during its first decade of existence. Arguably one of its biggest changes yet, Instagram made a big announcement just a year short of its 10th birthday.
As of November 2019, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri decided the app will be testing out the removal of the “like” feature. There are a couple of big reasons behind the decision to take this drastic measure. For starters, restoring authenticity to the app. What started as a place for people to share visual content/updates with friends and family members became (for many users) anything but that. Shortly after conception, Instagram turned into an arena where regular people turned actors and artists put on performative pieces with the hopes of entertaining strangers around the world.
It turns out, endlessly scrolling through images of other people’s everyday lives soon got old, boring, tired, plain, leading some to take matters into their own hands. On top of that, the struggle to remain relevant and stand out amongst the crowd pushed some others to theatrics. What many came to realize was that the more absurd, extravagant, comical the post, the more attention it would receive in the form of likes. The result of this madness: the birth of the influencer.
In the digital world, reality was viewed as lifeless. But, the inauthenticity of influencers showed great promise in changing that. Their appeal: the tendency to dramatize and a preference for overexposure. As they continue to go to extremes for likes, more people are beginning to take issue with them for this reason. But however much people acknowledge their phoniness, millions go on to gawk at them — hypocrisy runs rampant. Even “me on social media vs. me in real life” became a meme trend during the platform’s early years, exposing just how much people are aware of the facade they supposedly despise but still lust after.
Of course, nothing is more ironic than the classic mirror-selfie post highlighting the popular phone case which reads “Social Media seriously harms your mental health.” Because it does, right? Yet, here we are, glorifying the matter through a particularly insensitive ploy for attention.
“Celebrities do it and receive virtual praise, so why can’t I?” Herein lies the second major reason for trying to remove Instagram likes. Studies have shown negative and significant relationships between social media use and self-esteem, (Saiphoo et al.) signifying how some users tend to conflate self-worth with the number of likes their posts receive. When a post does well, users mentally feel better; however, the same effect can, and does, happen in the reverse. If a post ~flops~ it’s possible for users to take it personally. People join these platforms at a young age, making it easy to understand how features—such as likes—can harm their personal development and evoke other negative effects.
But what does all of this mean in the age of the influencer? Many have actually voiced their support for this update. In short, the removal of likes affects more than just the mental health of Instagram users. It means less pressure and more personalization on the platform — a move that is sure to revive the candidness and candor that was once desired on the app.
