Dangers of Following Strangers

        Users of social media in the U.S. do not realize the risk they're going through by following individuals they don't now, such as celebrities. Following unknown users could be harmful to the Instagram user since the other individual will now have access to his/her whole online profile. Teens especially post personal information like first name, location, and age on their profiles(Lenhart and Madden, 2007). Despite the seemingly very obvious risks, there is still a startlingly high number of posters that actually include their home address, phone numbers, and other information that could aid any stranger on their friend list to locate them.



       A survey was done on certain focus groups conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. It demonstrated instance of teens providing or protecting personal information on their online profile. Teens aged 14-17 are more likely to share personal information on their online profiles: with 76% including their school name, 23% including cell phone number, and 94% including personal photos(Madden et. al, 2013). Comparatively, teens aged 12-13 do not provide as much information, with only 56% providing school name, 11% providing cell phone number and 82% posting personal photos (Madden et. al, 2013). It was also concluded that 63% of teens believe that a motivated person could eventually identify them from the public information they provided on their online profiles (Kong, 2015). This could pose a serious threat to IG users since they might not be aware of a follower actively trying to determine their location.

       The higher the personal value for number of followers on IG, the more likely the person is to request following strangers. A following frenzy can be started by following celebrities, and depending on the intensity of celebrity worship, they may start to look through other followers of that celebrity, adding them to their own following. The degree of celebrity worship can also be a determining factor to the amount of personal information shared. Sometimes users will believe that in order to get recognized by the celebrity, he/she must provide enough information about themselves, so that he/she will grow familiar and eventually the celebrity will initiate contact.

With the research provided, one should always take precautions when posting information on their Instagram profile, or really any type of social media. IG users in particular should minimize the intensity of their celebrity worship to reduce potential risks.

Negative External Effects on Instagram Users

--> Social media has been proven to negatively affect mental health and wellness, as well a general satisfaction for ones life. Moreover, we might all notice that Instagram is a waste of time, as studies show that when an Instagram user receives a notification about a new post, it then takes them about 20 to 25 minutes to get back to their previous task (Totka, 2016). But besides the effects on mental health (not like that's important, right?) IG can also have a heavy negative impact on your financial wellbeing, physical health, and personal relationships. Not only that but studies have shown that at least 127 deaths have been caused by taking selfies (Rocheleau, 2016). So, maybe put down the selfie stick for a bit? #deathbyselfie #yikes So we've already mentioned how ridiculous the celebrity endorsement side of IG is, but did you know that Instagram made $12.4 billion dollars last year (Griffith, 2016)? A majority of the revenue earned was from IG users 18-24 years old. Which, if you think about it, are definitely not the highest paid age group, considering they're mostly university students. So not only do celebrities trick you into buying products that don't work, but they get to keep your money, which probably would've been better spent on things like paying off your education, or investing for the future. Additionally, Instagram has the notorious ability to ruin social relationships. As discussed earlier,  with celebrity worship, a lot of time gets sucked into "becoming a new you". Also, as a result of trying to become more like another person, you lose a part of yourself in the process. This leads to terminated friendships and romantic relationships because your friends and partners grew to love you for who you are, and not for the celebrity identity you're trying to portray. Popularity does not equal happiness. And neither does Instagram. With that said, IG can also ruin relationships through user image content and comments (Ridgway and Clayton, 2016). Many relationships have been ruined because of mistrust arising when a user gets a sexually suggestive comment on one of their photos. With younger and younger women posting sexually explicit or suggestive content, it becomes an issue of 'Where is this behaviour coming from?'. And the answer to that dilemma can be revealed in three words: their role models.  -->

Psychological Effects for Instagram Followers

       Constantly being exposed to pictures of highly sexualized, disproportionally skinny but curvaceous, beautiful scantily clad women all day, every day is exhausting. Not only does it make you feel unsuccessful, it forces you to compare yourself to others in an extremely unhealthy way (Langlois, Roggman and Musselman, 1994). This has contributed to high reports of body dissatisfaction in female IG users (de Vries et. al, 2016). While we’ve already discussed plastic surgery instance on women, we haven’t fully delved into the negative impacts on the psyche. Not only are women less confident in their body shapes, skin colours and sizes, they actually report a higher statistic of depression, anxiety, compulsive behaviours, and even aggression towards other women (Thorsteinsson, 2014). From a social comparison perspective, strangers’ positive posts on social media are expected to negatively affect viewers’ emotions, but from an emotional contagion perspective, strangers’ positive posts should positively affect viewers’ emotions (de Vries et. al, 2016).

       Jealousy is the green-eyed monster nobody wants around, but that everybody experiences. However, for those who spend countless hours of the day staring at women with “better” lives, it’s something we’ve grown to live with on a daily basis. Depression and anxiety are often accompanied by feelings of inadequacy and a disconnect between reality and, well, paid advertisement (Vogel et. al, 2015). Instagram use was positively associated with depressive symptoms, and positive social comparison was significantly negatively associated with depressive symptoms (Fleck and Johnson-Migalski, 2015). Amount of strangers followed moderated the associations of Instagram use with social comparison (significantly) and depressive symptoms, and significantly moderated the indirect association of Instagram use with depressive symptoms through social comparison (Epstude and Mussweiler, 2009). People tend to present themselves in the most favourable light on social media and it's dangerous to compare someone else's "highlight reel" with your own journey to happiness.

How Image Content is Unfavourably Affecting Adolescents and Youth

       One of the most familiar forms of social infrastructure is Instagram. As parents, friends, and siblings we don't realize how large the negative impact Instagram content has on adolescents and youth. Just because social media sites have widespread popularity and growth, doesn't mean the various social platforms can be exercised in a healthy manner. Social media is now considered to be the norm, and is known as the "most common activity" of adolescents and youth. But the negative consequences of social media do not have to become the norm for adolescents and youth of today, as long as we can educate others on practices for mental wellness and positive body consciousness.

       Image content on Instagram could lead users to visualize themselves comparatively to the images posted. As previously stated, this can depend on the level of celebrity worship. "Celebrity worship has been linked to body dissatisfaction, a higher frequency of voluntary cosmetic surgery (Maltby and Day, 2011) and eating disorders (Shorter et al, 2008)". Most image content viewed propagates the overt sexualization of females, a concept that equates a woman's personal worth to her physical attractiveness. Sadly, a majority of this content is perpetuated by the postings of female celebrities. These posts are viewed by hundreds of millions causing mass global influence and affect of imagery promoting female sexualization. The pictures of the 'perfect' bodies and faces posted on Instagram also have a harmful effect on the education of many teenage girls. Eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and obesity are often a result of negative body image. Often the resultant feelings of inadequacy associated with negative body image will result in the development of eating disorders, mental illness, exhaustion, decreased social involvement, and weak performance in school.*

       Consequently, as a result of both male and female audiences, both genders end up with highly corrupted ideals, causing them to think that all females should look like society's impossible beauty standards suggest. Beauty standards include body structure and proportion, facial features, skin tone, clothing style, degree of sexuality, etc. This causes females to compare themselves to ridiculous standards, and whichever ways they don't match up with those standards will cause their self confidence levels to decrease, eventually leading to poor mental health development. Females in particular will feel pressured to take certain measures to change their physical appearance, in the hopes of boosting their confidence and self-esteem. Studies show that social media is the top influence when it comes to advertisements*. Instagram pictures and videos of the diverse gimmick products influence followers to spend money in order to achieve some desired attribute. This involves the purchase of beauty products, dressing in a different (often more sexualized) manner, and most worrying of all, undergoing plastic surgery to change physical appearance. The resulting sustained belief is that material objects and a traditionally beautiful appearance will lead to infinite happiness.

Theories Associated with Celebrity Worship

       The celebrity world is developing  and being viewed through various resources of social media. This led to many people being interested in the idea of 'celebrity worship', which came about when research conducted suggested a strong correlation between celebrity worship and poor mental health (Crossman, 2016). An example of a source of social media that displays this correlation successfully and provides numerous resources to prove it, is Instagram.

       Through habitual Instagram use, a load of users have been addicted to following popular and well-known Instagram personnel. It starts off by simply pressing the "follow" button, and the other Instagram user accepting. Once following occurs, there will have a high interest level, causing them to keep track of every single image or video posted by the person they are following. This may lead to an interest in becoming like the influencer, through attempting to look like them, dress like them, communicate like them, etc. Most of the time, these influencers are celebrities.

       As previously stated, celebrity worship can be very detrimental to the individual worshipper. "Celebrity worship has been linked with body dissatisfaction, a higher frequency of voluntary cosmetic surgery (Maltby and Day, 2011) and eating disorders (Shorter et al, 2008).  The intensity of worship leads to many theories coming into recognition. One proposed theory is named the 'parasocial relationship' (Rubin and McHugh, 1987). This theory explains the factors of a one-sided relationship, as the celebrity doesn't know that the person worshipping them has developed an obsession. McCutcheon then came along and added that this could also be described by his "absorption addiction" model which proposes that an individual unsatisfied and disappointed with various aspects of their life, can cause them to be 'absorbed' into the life of the celebrity (McCutcheon, 2002). This relates back to the individual having a poor mental health by causing "Emotional Contagion" (Epstude and Mussweiler, 2009). Essentially, the Instagram user will start to mimic every aspect of the celebrity's life, which could involve losing weight, distancing from loved ones, and more damaging long-term consequences to the individual.

       Another way to justify the correlation between high exposure to the social content of others and poor mental health is the Social Comparison Theory (Festinger, 1954). The theory suggests that Instagram users will start to compare themselves to celebrities for validation purposes. When the user starts to compare themselves to someone they wish to become based on their perceived success, it is called upward comparison*. This often contributes to the user feeling negatively about themselves, and with regular divulgence, it evolves to the extreme.