Are You An Influencer or a Follower — Exploring the Impact of Instagram Use on Mental Health
Every day you wake up in this digital age you are presented with a choice — consume content or create it. Every day thousands of people choose to passively scroll through social media and absorb insane amounts of data — from ads to organic content. But how does this impact our everyday life, mood and confidence, and does the way we use social media also have different effects on our everyday life?
One of the most popular social media networks among young people today is Instagram. Active users of Instagram spend an average of 45 minutes a day on it, and often more. This kind of continuity in the use of Instagram is exactly what should make us think more deeply about the impact it has on every young person out there. If we look at it from logical perspective any action that we continuously perform every day is bound to have an effect on us. Therefore we know that using Instagram affects us, but the question we have to ask is: How?
People today are becoming more and more aware of the influence that constantly using Instagram has on our mental, but also physical condition, and this has become a frequent topic and subject of various articles and research.
Does Instagram harm our mental state, does it affect our productivity, does it shape a negative self-view and does it affect our social life outside of social networks are just some of the questions that I have been asking myself. So I decided to put myself and four of my closest friends under an experiment and see just how much of a role Instagram plays in our everyday life.
Description of the research
The research was conducted on 4 respondents for 12 days. Duration of the research was divided into 3 equal intervals lasting for 4 days. In the first interval that we will call stalker phase respondents used Instagram as they normally would, but without posting anything to their profile. During the second interval, the ghost phase, the respondents did not use Instagram at all. While during the third interval, named influencer phase, next to the normal use of social network respondents posted their own content on Instagram (whether it’s a post or Instagram story). At the end of each day, respondents filled out a survey with questions regarding different emotions they felt that day. For the purpuse of this article we will show answers divided into 3 levels — low, high and midium — according to the answers of the respondats. So that we can easily interpret the results.
Does posting on Instagram creates anxiety in Instagram users?
One of the questions this amateur experiment wanted to explore was whether we feel more anxiety when we post on Instagram, or when we don’t have access to it. So at the end of each day the respondents had to determine the level of anxiety they felt that day. Assuming nothing else changed in respondents' lives during the intervals except the way they used Instagram, we got clear correlations for the level of anxiety reported and usage of Instagram. Most of the respondents felt a medium intensity of anxiety in all intervals (40%, 50% and 67%). However, by studying the results for each interval, a clear difference in high and low intensity of anxiety can be seen.
The highest percentage of high-intensity anxiety (30%) was felt by the respondents in the influencer phase of the experiment, in that interval, the smallest percentage also reported low-intensity of anxiety (20%) — which allows us to conclude that the very act of posting on Instagram and expecting some feedback from our followers creates some unrest in Instagram users (especially if they don’t post pictures in their daily life too often). This hypothesis is also confirmed by the result about the level of anxiety from the ghost interval when the respondents didn’t use Instagram at all. On days without Instagram, respondents reported the highest percentage of low levels of anxiety (33%) compared to the other intervals, also none of the respondents did report a high intensity of anxiety in this interval.
The “like” system on Instagram can make us feel anxious when our posts don’t get enough likes or the likes aren’t from people we care about. We can also feel anxious when our posts get lots of likes, as we may feel pressure to maintain a certain image or standard. All of these things can lead to increased anxiety in our lives.
Many researches have shown that Instagram use can impact our mental health and contribute to feelings of anxiety and this reasarch indicated the same idea. Therefore, it is important to be mindful of how much time we spend on the platform and to take breaks from using it when necessary.
Do we need feedback from our followers to feel confidence
Would we be more confident if we stopped using Instagram or have we become dependent on the feedback we get from our followers? This was one of the main areas I wanted to dive into during this short experiment. One of the main areas respondents had to assert is the level of confidence they felt during the intervals.
For this question the respondents report the highest percentage( 60%) of high level of self-confidence during the influencer interval, which is almost double the percentage they felt compared to other intervals (36% and 17%). In support of this, in the ghost phase, respondents recorded a two times lower percentage of high self-confidence (17%) than in the previous interval. In addition, the highest percentage (33%) of low self-confidence occurs in this interval.
We can conclude that when we don’t post pictures and get feedback from our followers, and don’t even communicate with them, we feel the smallest level of self-confidence. On the other hand when we post pictures and hear positive comments from our followers we feel higher levels of self-confidence.
All in all, Instagram has become a kind of label that everyone creates about themselves and that plays a huge role in our heads when it comes to self-confidence and a sense of worth. It is important to be careful when creating that label so that we don’t create a wrong and unrealistic image of ourselves that could end up hurting us.
There has been many research (done way more professionally than this one) showing how much Instagram has affected our society, especially young adolescents still forming themselves and their self-image. Posting on Instagram can have a huge impact on our confidence. We can compare ourselves to the posts we see, comparing our own lives to what we see posted and feeling inadequate in comparison. We might feel like other people are having more exciting or successful lives than us, and this can lead to a lack of self-esteem and confidence.
On the other hand, when we post something on Instagram, it can give us a boost of confidence. We can post pictures of ourselves and receive positive feedback from our friends and followers, which can help to build our confidence.
Overall, posting on Instagram can have both positive and negative effects on our confidence. We should be mindful of the impact that posting on social media can have on our self-esteem, and take steps to ensure that we’re not comparing ourselves to others or feeling inadequate. We should also take the time to celebrate our successes and post about them, so that we get the positive reinforcement that we need to build our confidence. It is important to remember that no matter what kind of feedback we receive, it is a reflection of others’ opinions and should not be taken as an absolute truth. Ultimately, our confidence should come from within and should not be dependent on the opinion of others.
Do we feel more lonely when we aren’t connected?
Instagram can be a great way to stay connected with friends and family, it can also have a negative impact on our feelings of loneliness. Studies have found that heavy Instagram users tend to feel more isolated and disconnected from others, and have a greater fear of missing out on social activities. Additionally, many people compare their own lives to the perfect, curated images they see on the platform, which can lead to feelings of inadequacy and loneliness. During this experiment respondents had to assess the level of loneliness they felt each day so we can compare the impact different ways they used instagram affected them.
In the influencer interval, when the respondents received feedback from their followers, none of them reported feeling a higher level of loneliness. Likewise in the stalker phase, in which they were just following the posts of others, but were still able to interact with to people via Instagram messages, respondents report a high percentage (79%) of low level of loneliness and only a small percentage of the medium level of loneliness (21%). On the contrary , during the interval of non Instagram usage, respondents reported high level of loneliness for the first time (as much as 25%), and the lowest low intensity of loneliness (33%).
This can lead us to a conclusion that today Instagram is still an indispensable part of the everyday life of most young people. It is a tool that connects them and helps them feel part of the community. More professional studies had concluded that spending time on Instagram can lead to a decrease in self-worth and increase in feelings of loneliness. This is because Instagram is often used for comparison and competition, leading to feelings of envy and FOMO (fear of missing out). Additionally, seeing pictures of people looking happy and successful can create feelings of loneliness and isolation.
Despite these negative impacts, Instagram can also be used to help combat loneliness as we have seen during this short experiment. By connecting with friends, finding online communities, and following people with similar interests, people can find a sense of belonging and connection. Additionally, the act of expressing yourself and sharing your own content can make you feel more connected to the world and boost your self-confidence.
Conclusion
This was my first attempt at conducting research, and it was done on a small group of people resting on a lot of assumptions. Regardless, it helped my friends and me reflect on a way we use Instagram as our main social network and the impact it has on us.
We do most things in today’s busy world automatically and out of habit. Likewise, we use Instagram without noticing the impact it has on us. In order to maximise positive aspects of Instagram, such as connecting with others and a way to share our experiences, it is necessary to be aware of the way we use it and when it starts to have a negative impact apply occasional interval of non-use to relax and reduce our anxiety levels or the need to compare ourselves with perfect pictures of lives of other people. Instagram is good for us to the extent that we use it positively. We should filter the information that reaches us through it.
The sphere of influence of Instagram, as well as all other social media networks, on our mental and physical health is still insufficiently researched today. How to to better understand the way of thinking, it is necessary to investigate in more detail the influence that social networks have on today’s modern man because the influence is certainly there and it changes every day, as do these networks.
Sources
https://www.apa.org/members/content/social-media-research
https://sysomos.com/2016/10/27/can-social-media-affect-health/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181108164316.htm
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1524839911405850
https://medium.com/s/no-mercy-no-malice/no-mercy-no-malice-coarseness-and-coddling-f89010894dd4
