Introduction: What Is Instagram and What Are The Negative Effects?

        With 600 million users and counting, Instagram has become an influential and widely known form of social media (Aslam, 2017). Instagram is essentially an online mobile photo-sharing site that enables users to post images and videos either privately or publicly. It also allows an individual user to share whatever they have posted to other social networking platforms. These platforms include Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and Tumblr. Instagram is compatible for almost any device system (iOS and Android). It also allows online access from a computer, yet Instagram users are only permitted to upload and share videos or images from smartphone devices, on the mobile app. Instagram also has features like allowing posters to send vanishing photos and videos to followers, private messaging, and uploading short video "stories" visible for only 24 hours.


          Users include people from countries all around the world, but is most predominantly used by citizens in the United States of America, with 77.6 million users (Aslam, 2017). Participants can include teenagers, adults, children, and even the elderly, however a large portion of these individuals are celebrities. This is one of the newest and most widespread trends of social e-marketing, and because of this, celebrities on Instagram are often accompanied by a massive following of online fans. As a result of their wide-scale popularity and the sheer volume of followers, celebrities have a big impact on their Instagram followers, and as we will discuss, that impact is primarily negative.

         Current trends suggests that a correlation exists between celebrity worship and mental health, specifically, the more extreme the idolization, the higher the negative impact on psychological well-being (Mariella, 2014). Our social beauty standards are altered negatively through social media that involves countless photo sharing and comparison, the exact premise of Instagram. In terms of psychological and physical well-being, Instagram could potentially affect areas of dissatisfaction such as body image, self-esteem, elected cosmetic surgeries, eating disorders, depression, anxiety, compulsive spending habits, and more as the list continues for other long lasting damages to mental wellness (Crossman, 2016).  

          Research has proposed multiple theories that validate the negative correlation, encompassing social comparison theory, parasocial relationships, symbolic capital, McCutcheon's theory, overweight preoccupation, and escapism. These theories will further be discussed in subsequent posts.

References

Aslam, S. (2017, January 23) Instagram by the numbers: Stats, graphics, and fun facts. Retrieved from https://www.omnicoreagency.com/instagram-statistics/

Crossman, A. L. (2016). An investigation into the relationship between celebrity attitudes, 

social comparison and social media use.

Mariella, A. (2014, June 24). How instagram is affecting the way we perceive ourselves and the world around us. Retrieved from http://elitedaily.com/life/culture/x-pro-ii-valencia-instagram-choose-neither/614571/