Instagram Is Toxic - Facebook Leaks by WSJ
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This weekly newsletter is mostly about the article, books, videos etc. I read or watch or my views on different topics which revolves around my head during the week. Now, let us dive into this week’s reads.
1. Social Media is Toxic
September 15th Newspaper issue for Wall Street Journal did an article titled,
Facebook Knows Instagram Is Toxic For Teen Girls, Its Research Shows, Internal documents show a youth mental-health issue that Facebook plays down in public
Sorry to say my very first thought reading the title is, Do we need a research for this ? Any user who is on the app knows this already, their family, friends all know this already. My first though went like, everyone knows that its bad for them or even if they do not realize, the people all around them knows the issue of social media over persons life. Any heavy user of these apps, you can clearly notice their inability to concentrate, they show high level anxiety and temper, All their social interactions is around the content they consumed over Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube and what not.
Social Media is Toxic!
Just listen to any Tech Giant Leaders who are part of Social Media companies and are parents, They will never allow their kids to use any of the social media apps. May be here and there YouTube is allowed due to School programs, Educational content, Library content are published to YouTube. All the functionalities which are build into these Apps are created based on psychology so within a first look and use, person is expected to stick around, swiping up and up to consume content at pace, that time is not known, Its a Instant Gratification.
This is the world we live in. On Internet people live a beautiful life and when you pick a phone and make a call, they can hardly do a 2 minute conversation, also those 2 minutes small talk is also based on the content they have posted on internet. There after there hardly much in a conversation, as all that shown on internet is not reality. Reality is its Toxic, at a level of if bike driving or car driving is not safe for you and you may get killed. Social media also does the same thing, only difference is its a slow kill. Coming back to the WSJ Article, Researchers inside Instagram began studying young users App usage and they found,
* Thirty-two percent of teenage girls have mentioned that they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse - This was presented in company presentations multiple times.
* Instagram creates a unrealistic picture how your body should look like, how you should live your life
* With 3 years on multiple data analysis and one common point stood out as harmful for teen girls. Report says, It creates body image issues worse for one in three teen girls
* We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls,"
* Teeenage’s specially, "They often feel 'addicted' and know that what they're seeing is bad for their mental health but feel unable to stop themselves."
* Facebook has repeatedly found that its photo-sharing app is harmful to a significant percentage of teenagers, according to a Wall Street Journal report published Tuesday.
* The Journal cited internal Facebook studies over the past three years that examined how Instagram affects its young user base, with teenage girls being most notably harmed.
* The company is in the process of making a version of Instagram for kids
Read the article here,
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