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Anecdotal, but there is a documentary right now on danish television, on 4 young girls stressing about, having to be perfect, and bad mental health/self esteem.
by martin_bech 9y ago
Anecdotal, but there is a documentary right now on danish television, on 4 young girls stressing about, having to be perfect, and bad mental health/self esteem.. and it looks a lot like most of them have an instagram addiction. One chooses places to eat etc. on what would look best on instagram. One aimmessly browsers pretty girls, to see how should look herself.
- startupflix 9y agoHorrible.
- alienreborn 9y agoRelevant movie that explores the psyche behind both `consumer` and `producer` on Instagram: Ingrid Goes West
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- rainieri 9y agoHow's this any different from mindlessly listening to generic pop music and reading teen magazines?
- Skunkleton 9y agoDifferent things can be bad for the same reason.
- HarryHirsch 9y agoHeh. The teenie magazines occasionally have a conscience where you least expect it. This fellow here - https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Goldstein_(Psychotherapeut) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Goldstein_(Psychotherap... - he wrote for the best-known German youth magazine, and he was good. Instagram and Facebook, OTOH, they sell clicks and outrage, because outrage sells.
- nosuchthing 9y agoThe illusion of authenticity, the pervasiveness and ubiquitous of mobile phone app usage, and participation in the illusion of the spectacle and camouflaged theatrics of a contrived reality. Teens can understand magazines have a known aspect of theatrics, whereas the assumption is that instagram is reality and like a Pavlovian dog you must present your life in such a way to gather bonus points from other internet users.
- dingaling 9y agoI was recently introduced to Instagram by other 'serious' photographers and they have a wholly different use-case. No selfies or look-at-my-dinner but instead a sort of fast-paced challenge showcase e.g. today might be Sunsets and tomorrow Waves. It's a way of building reputation , such as how programmers use Github, but because of Instagrams's resizing and compression of photos it's only an interest-generator; the full experience is on Flickr or 500px or whatever. But apparently it's the most lucrative channel for picking-up paid work.
- chongli 9y agoTeen magazines don't let you send in pictures of yourself and collect likes from everybody in your social group. This is where all the stress comes from. Young girls are under enormous pressure to be attractive and gather tons of likes from their peers. The feedback loop has tightened so much that it reinforces the repetitive behaviour of posting and checking for likes. It's addictive!
- morpheuskafka 9y agoBy contrast, however, they offer no positive feedback whatsoever. At my school social media contributes positively to most people's self esteem because it is a constant source of positive feedback from friends on personal activities and memories. IDK why we are blaming Instagram for bullying and issues that have been around for years.
- bspn 9y ago> At my school social media contributes positively to most people's self esteem because it is a constant source of positive feedback from friends on personal activities and memories But that's the problem. People get a "like" or equivalent on a photo or post and they conflate that with self-worth. They then see their friend (or worse, enemy) get more likes and either feel unworthy or a need to compete. I get the short-term self-esteem boost from a popular post, but the long-terms effects of chasing such positive affirmation are not healthy and will likely to lead to deeper issues later in life particularly once you enter the workforce. Disclaimer: I went to school pre-social media so insert appropriate dinosaur reference.
- morpheuskafka 9y agoHaving friends and others that care about what you do is inherently part of social species' self worth--that doesn't imply "chasing positive affirmation", which is a problem. Nor does it necessitate a quantitative approach to counting likes. "Likes" are just the modern day version of getting a verbal "that's cool" from a friend. If someone goes around and counts how many positive things are said to them and compares it to others, that is an issues but it's not an issues of technology
- dfxm12 9y agoI agree with you, but one thing to think about is that Instagram is always "on", it always has new content, something new to aspire to. Compare that to the monthly time frame of magazines, some of which might promote the same style for a few months before moving on. It's also somewhat easier for parents to monitor their kids' magazine consumption (if only because magazines cost money), while it's hard to do the same for IG.
- 928jf0923 9y agoReads like more of the same to me: Conform to $arbitrary_meme, even if you have to make yourself sick trying.
- wagecuck 9y agoThose are also horrible.
- bsder 9y agoOperant conditioning. Social media is practically a Skinner Box (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinner_Box https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinner_Box) with a very tight feedback loop. The randomness of the reward approaches an optimal conditioning schedule. Listening to pop or reading a magazine doesn't have anywhere near that level of power.
- instatempacc 9y agoIt's kinda sad. But my girlfriend now chooses places similarly. She goes on instagram and looks for good looking pictures and suggest that we go there. I'm trying to make her spend less time on the app, but it's one of the apps she by default goes to when she is bored.
- et-al 9y agoThere's nothing wrong with browsing for beautiful places. Travel magazines, especially the ones in the back of your airplane seat, do this. However Instagram adds a "keeping up with the Joneses" dimension to it with everyone taking selfies that does make things unhealthy. Are you traveling somewhere because you're actual curious about the culture and history, or because it'll add good content on your IG? BrooklynCartoons does a spot on job of critiquing our current "culture": https://www.instagram.com/p/Bfym2nunhbX/?taken-by=brooklyncartoons https://www.instagram.com/p/Bfym2nunhbX/?taken-by=brooklynca... https://www.instagram.com/p/Bg_0TIKnvae/?taken-by=brooklyncartoons https://www.instagram.com/p/Bg_0TIKnvae/?taken-by=brooklynca...
- instatempacc 9y agoGreat cartoons. Ironical to use Instagram to show how toxic the 'gram culture has become.
- mr_spothawk 9y agoIANAT - if you're feeling like it's sad that your gf is finding places to eat, you can also suggest your alternatives or find a diff gf. takin' folks for granted isn't very nice, tho
- instatempacc 9y agoI'm feeling sad because she wants to go those places because she could take pictures to post. As I said, I think this is toxic in the longer run and I'm trying in my own way to get her not so much make the decisions based on what looks good on instagram.
- deleted 9y ago
- pwenzel 9y agoCan you share the name of the documentary or where I can find it?
- martin_bech 9y agoit called "De perfekte piger/The perfect girls" its available here, but its in danish https://www.dr.dk/tv/se/de-perfekte-piger/-/de-perfekte-piger-1-6 https://www.dr.dk/tv/se/de-perfekte-piger/-/de-perfekte-pige... .
- tomc1985 9y agoTeenagers' sense of groupthink is a much bigger problem than just instagram
- cbhl 9y agoThe thing about Instagram is it takes groupthink from just a teen's school to the whole world. The bar is just so much higher. "It’s not enough to just connect people, we have to make sure those connections are positive."
- sridca 9y agoAnd why should groupthink be an unique trait of teenagers? :-P
- tomc1985 9y agoIt isn't, but it manifests especially strongly in kids
- gfo 9y agoI've heard anecdotes of people who delete posts from Instagram if they don't get enough likes - some figures included a minimum of 100 likes. I can absolutely see where the mental health problems come into play from that.