Posted by By Evie Kortan, Staff Writer
According to CNN, in the United States, half of kids have a form of social media by age twelve. Although Instagram’s terms of service states that one must be thirteen or older to join Instagram, it’s very easy for younger kids to join because there is no age-verification process. According to Common Sense Media, it’s highly recommended that children be fifteen or older to join “because of mature content, access to strangers, marketing ploys, and data collection.”
Out of ten girls in an anonymous survey about the effects of Instagram on female mental health, six had joined Instagram at the age of twelve or younger.
“I joined way too early…it embedded beauty standards into my head even more than the media I was already consuming had been,” admitted a high schooler who joined Instagram at age nine.”
Anonymous
“I joined way too early…it embedded beauty standards into my head even more than the media I was already consuming had been,” admitted a high schooler who joined Instagram at age nine.
When some teenagers joined at a later age than their peers, they expressed feelings of exclusion and disconnection because they didn’t have an Instagram account.
Sophia Camiola, a sixteen-year-old New Paltz High School student, spent many years feeling like the odd one out because she didn’t have Instagram in middle school or early high school.
“I felt excluded. I didn’t have Instagram for so long because my parents wouldn’t let me have it until I was sixteen,” Camiola says.
Although she felt like a late bloomer, Camiola suspects that if she got Instagram at a younger age, it could’ve been more damaging to her mental health. She believes that sixteen was an appropriate age for her because she had a stronger sense of self-worth, maturity, and self-confidence.
“If you start out with a positive mindset and good self-esteem then it’s an okay place to be, but if you go into it with a negative mindset then it can be very damaging,” concludes Camiola.
These feelings are similar to those of a few surveyees from the previously mentioned survey. Even those in the survey who joined at an age older than twelve expressed that they thought they had been too young to join.
“I thought at the time I joined too late,” remarked one of the participants, “But in retrospect I shouldn’t have joined, even at 13.”
Instagram challenges teens’ self-image as they have access to an endless feed of posts. Especially harmful to girls’ self-esteem, these posts highlight impossible beauty standards, which causes girls to fight an infinite, internal battle of never feeling beautiful enough. A study done by the Wall Street Journal found that Instagram makes body image issues worse for every 1 in 3 teen girls. Even participants in a sample size echo this statistic.
“If they look really good in a post I compare my body to theirs, it’s almost automatic. It’s not good, and that’s why I spend minimal amounts of time on the app. It does more harm than good because so many posts are posed and edited.”
Ella Urrico
“When you are on a platform where you only share the best moments and highlights of your life, or the best pictures of yourself, it becomes very easy to compare yourself to others,” writes an anonymous seventeen-year-old high school student. “Your identity is reduced to a collage-like profile with stats of how many friends you have, so it’s easy to get insecure about how you look.” Instagram’s pressure to look perfect spawns new insecurities every day for teen girls. Instagram has been recently proven to be a direct cause of eating disorders in young girls. The BBC found that certain hashtags and posts glamorize and promote Anorexia, Bulimia, and extreme dieting. The pressure to be “skinny” on this app causes girls to take unhealthy and dangerous measures to fit this beauty standard.
“Instagram just encouraged my already negative thoughts regarding my insecurities about myself to fester and grow.” Shared an anonymous sixteen year old.
Ella Urrico, a seventeen year old New Paltz High School student, doesn’t spend much time on Instagram. She likes it because she can connect with her peers, but she finds that when she sees their posts, she can’t help but to compare her body to theirs.
“If they look really good in a post I compare my body to theirs, it’s almost automatic. It’s not good, and that’s why I spend minimal amounts of time on the app. It does more harm than good because so many posts are posed and edited.”
In a study done by TruePic, out of 2,133 U.S. adults sixty-four percent admit to editing their posted pictures. Many posts are edited so that people can finally meet the beauty standards of today’s world. Instagram is polished and only allows people to see the most positive and best pictures posted by others.
Lizabeth Madara, a Social Worker at Poughkeepsie High School, expresses how she feels about the message Instagram sends to young girls.
“It’s difficult for people because you can make your life look wonderful, but then other people see that and it encourages a culture where we constantly compare ourselves to other people, which is especially bad for teenagers’ self-esteem.”
Lizabeth Madara
“It’s difficult for people because you can make your life look wonderful, but then other people see that and it encourages a culture where we constantly compare ourselves to other people, which is especially bad for teenagers’ self-esteem,” says Madara.
“Instagram generally makes me feel awful, like my life is inadequate because I’m sitting at home liking pictures of people who look like they’re ‘living their best life’”, says an anonymous fifthteen year old.
Instagram is also a constant representation of popularity; one’s number of followers is equivalent to how well-liked they are. People often make judgments and assumptions about people based on their follower count.
“Instagram isn’t toxic but people on it are,” said Urrico. “It’s important to remember that.”
The Maroon 