“Thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse,” the researchers said in a March 2020 slide presentation posted to Facebook’s internal message board, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. “Comparisons on Instagram can change how young women view and describe themselves.”
For the past three years, Facebook has been conducting studies into how its photo-sharing app affects its millions of young users. Repeatedly, the company’s researchers found that Instagram is harmful for a sizable percentage of them, most notably teenage girls.
“We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls,” said one slide from 2019, summarizing research about teen girls who experience the issues.
“Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression,” said another slide. “This reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups.”
Among teens who reported suicidal thoughts, 13% of British users and 6% of American users traced the desire to kill themselves to Instagram, one presentation showed.
An algorithm will probably bury this post. You should share it everywhere! But you are under no obligation. Never. Obligations are nowhere to be found among the terms and conditions of this website.
Here’s your semi-regular reminder: You don’t have to be there. You can quit Twitter and Facebook and never go back. You can set up social-media shop in a more humane environment, like micro.blog, or you can send emails to your friends — with photos of your cats attached! If you’re a person with a significant social-media following, you can start a newsletter; heck, you can do that if you just want to stay in touch with five of six friends. All of the big social-media platforms are way past their sell-by date. The stench of their rottenness fills the room, and the worst smells of all come from Facebook and Twitter.
In your heart you know I’m right: It’s time to go.
I agree that the social media platforms are odious. I don’t know if it is time for me to ditch all my social media accounts officially and forever. Today I was thinking: “What would it take for me to change my mind?”
The truth is that I hate social media services. I hate the way I get addicted, the way I long for likes and favorites and hearts and flattery and affirmation and shares and followers and friends. I don’t like how social media ecosystems have come to manage, shape, and alter our human psychology, to shape our view of the world, to reveal the ways we’re polarized, to intensify our polarization. I don’t like the ways they create the illusion that we’re keeping up, or that we’re connected, or how each service becomes its own broadcast medium, and that then, for some reason, we feel compelled to create content for those providers, to tell stories and provide updates and to compose tweet-storms, and the like.
I feel guilty from time to time that my presence on social media contributes to forces that hold other people there. Odds are you landed here from your social media feed. I like that and I don’t like that at the very same time.
I haven’t been on Twitter for a couple of years, I ditched Instagram this summer, I left Facebook about a month ago. I genuinely believe I am happier person because of these decisions. My accounts are still active. But I don’t log in.
I don’t like the codependencies that have emerged between social media platforms and traditional, old-world media. I find the relationship between Twitter and those who work as professional journalists disgusting. Twitter depends on traditional outlets for content, traditional outlets depend on Twitter as a source of clicks. It is no surprise that Twitter would bend to the demands of the power brokers in traditional media, and that journalists working in traditional media would tailor their trade to the contours of what “works” in social media ecosytems. The cycle is vicious, and devours all, even bystanders.
But as someone who has written on the internet since MySpace, I know and understand the game. Readers live on social media platforms. If you want them to come to your website, you have to open the portal, leave a breadcrumb, open the door, show them the path, leave them a link, create a trail. I’m not wrong. The headline needs to be enticing. The image needs to be compelling. Then, the content needs to be good.
You’ll notice that my website has followers. Visit my homepage, and you’ll see this in a sidebar:
But here is a little secret: 1,303 of those subscribers are connected to my WordPress site via social media channels, mainly Twitter. My audience at my Facebook Page is much smaller. I have twenty-four email subscribers and seventy-five people who follow me in their WordPress feed. Forty-four people receive my occasional newsletter.
This past weekend I was talking to my brother. We touched on this dilemma. From time to time, I have something to say. The social media platforms are often the easiest medium by which to connect with a readership. It is where the readers are, it is the road they take to arrive here. On the grand highways of Twitter and Facebook, more often than not I have to post a billboard and provide an exit. Then it is up to the reader to travel down the information superhighway, stop off at my website, and enjoy the offerings at this here greasy spoon.
So what would it take for me to quit social media forever? To close my accounts? I don’t know. I do, after all, want to develop a readership.
But if one day, on Facebook and Twitter, you notice I’m gone, I hope you’ll track me down, see what I’ve been up to, sit a spell, and read and gaze and rock on.
I think we’d all be better off if we ditched social media, returned to readers and RSS feeds and listservs. I used to bookmark my favorite websites and visit to find out what’s new. That was before social media services learned how to put those enticing clickies in front of my face, to be my aggregator of information.
Do you ever get tired of having a massive supercomputer directly aimed at your brain?
I do.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could see what we had opted to see rather than what our social media algorithmic overlords want us to see?
Sure would.
Another world is possible. Ditch social media. Build another network. Your own.
The past few years I’ve conducted a staggered withdrawal from all forms of social media, most recently backing away from Facebook.
I left Twitter during a Lenten fast; I dropped Instagram this past summer.
(If you’re saying, “Wait! I got to this post via social media!” please remember: WordPress pushes my content to my registered social media accounts automatically, and I’d prefer you follow my blog via subscription. Just submit your email to the proper field.)
This post by Alan Jacobs captures one thing I’ve loved about my step back from social media environments: privacy. Being alone, and letting others alone. Not knowing what a loose connection thinks about a news story, or not knowing the latest conspiracy theory a friend is now pushing.
Mo Perry, whom Jacobs quotes, writes that ditching social media gives us a “chance to rediscover privacy.”
What happens when you rediscover privacy?
Perry identifies one significant consequence. You get “[t]o inhabit…experience without broadcasting it or framing it for public consumption.”
Perry hopped off social media for a weekend trip, motivated by her observation that “my social media feed is full of people scolding others who have the audacity to try to salvage a shred of joy and pleasure from their lives…The communally encouraged state of being is dread and misery and rage. People who eat at restaurants, people who let their kids play on playgrounds, people who walk around the lake without a mask — all condemnable, contemptible. Selfish. How dare they?”
Who wants to be part of that kind of environment? Why continue to subject yourself to it if you don’t have to? Why continue to log in and camp out in social media environments that are stoking hatred for others while also bolstering your own feelings of self-righteousness?
Remember, Facebook, Twitter, and the rest are all algorithmically designed to show you more of what you want to see, more posts that confirm your biases, and more posts that stoke your outrage. It’s built to put the things before you that make you happy or make you mad, and we’re more drawn to the things that make us mad. Social media is well designed to make you angry.
Regarding Perry’s observation, Alan Jacobs writes:
A ray of hope, this thought. That what the scolds will achieve is to push the rest of us “to rediscover privacy.” To take photos that we share only with friends; to articulate thoughts just for friends. To leave Twitter and Facebook and Instagram to the scolds, who will then have no choice but to turn on one another.
Why not just go back to the way things were not that long ago, when we enjoyed our life in private, without social media? That doesn’t sound so bad. Wouldn’t we all be just a little better off?
We like to believe the myth that social media connects us, brings us together. The longer we go, the more that bit of ideology is exposed as patently false.
Social media has undeniably changed the way we relate to the world. Online, we each manage our “personal brand.” News networks feature the President’s tweets prominently on their chyrons. Twitter and Facebook have been scrutinized for their role in public debate, particularly in how they can effect our political discourse. And there is evidence that too much time on social media can have a negative impact on mental health.
I was an early adopter of the major social media platforms. I signed up for Facebook with my college email address, my first Twitter updates were sincerely about what I was doing (things like “taking a walk” or “eating grapes”), and I can remember Instagram before the ads, videos, and the “discover” feature. I signed up for Snapchat when my students began using it. I made some cool videos using the face filters. At least I thought they were cool.
But in more recent years I’ve sought ways to limit my social media usage. Why? Mainly because of what I’ve observed about social media’s effect on me. I’ll admit I’ve wanted to be “online famous” for my photography or writing, but thank God that never happened. I’ve gotten caught in stupid online arguments and I’ve allowed the thoughts and opinions of strangers on the internet to darken my mood. I’ve been jealous of what other people show online, whether it be their possessions or their perfectly stylized life. I’ve sought confirmation of my own biases and nurtured negative views of “those people” over there, who are often the very people (neighbors, enemies) whom I believe I am called to love in Jesus Christ.
Online engagement is spiritually formative. When social media is a habit, it becomes part of the ongoing, continuous process in which we are becoming who we will be forever. And while I’ve done my best to make social media work for me, to tailor it toward life-giving and positive ends, I’ve found there are limits to the various platforms. Each, in its own way, can yield some good, but there are negative side effects that come with daily use.
I started by deleting all social media applications from my phone, and keeping all but one application (Twitter) off of my tablet. That keeps my usage way down.
I only access Facebook on my web browser, and I try to check it only once a day, and to never scroll. I don’t want to be a voyeur, though there is an element of voyeurism in all social media. It’s like one great big never ending episode of “The Real World.” When I do access Facebook, I only peek at notifications and make sure I don’t have any new messages. I sometimes fail in the “once a day” rule, and I still think once a day is too much for me. I also fail, at times, to remain at the top of the feed. I do not like what Facebook has become, but I maintain a presence there because of the friends and family members who have connected with me on the service, especially those I’ve befriended through Christian fellowship.
Twitter is, by far, my favorite social media service. It’s how I track trends and news. But I’m not a fan of the timeline algorithm, and I sometimes get annoyed when political takes trend. I love it when I’m watching a live sporting event.
I limit updates to Instagram to one day a week. I install the application on my phone on Wednesdays, post my image for the week, and then delete the application. I enjoy photography and I have friends who actively use the service, and see the images and words I share as a way to encourage and offer a little slice of life to others.
I left Snapchat for good when my friend Oliver ditched the service. Technically I still have an account, but I haven’t logged in for over one year.
My rules are in no ways laws, and I’m constantly tweaking how I use each service. There is a part of me that would like to simply leave social media altogether, as Jaron Lanier suggests in Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. But I can’t bring myself to do it. For one, I’m a writer, and social media is one means of connecting with readers. But also, there is the gravitational pull of social connections. Even though I’m Facebook friends with people I haven’t spoken to in years, I value maintaining the thread, keeping open a channel in the event that if there is a need to communicate, I can.
I also have privacy concerns about online use, or how we freely give mega-corporations information about our lives, with little idea of how that information could be used to harm or manipulate us. That’s a concern of mine, not only for me, but for my family, whom I sometimes share pictures of or stories about. Building a scrapbook, or keeping a journal, may actually be the safer and wiser path.
These days I’ve found that I’m a little more present, a little happier, and a little less anxious. I get most of my news from my local paper, the Waco Tribune-Herald. I call my mom about once a week. I spend time with a small group of friends. And when I attend a sporting event or a concert, I watch, or listen, and try to take it all in. To see it with my own eyes, hear it with my own ears, and to treasure what is happening in the moment.
I’m OK with the transient nature of the experience. I don’t have to capture it. I can just be part of it. I don’t need to tell others what I’m up to. I don’t have to always know what other people are thinking. I don’t need to try and improve my status by sharing my latest take, or my most recent witticism.
I’m writing to ask a favor. It’s a strange favor. So, please, hang in there with me.
I’ve been writing online for many years. You may have read something I have published, and if so I thank you for your kindness. Reading requires time and attention. When a person tells me I have written something they found helpful or insightful I am both grateful and amazed. Just the fact they told me they read leaves me floored. I wrote something. They read it. Wow!
You may not have read anything I’ve written. Maybe this silly appeal is your first foray into my prose. For that, I am sorry. But we’re connected. And because we’re connected, I have a request for you too.
I’d like you to invite you to subscribe to my website.
You’re probably saying, “That’s it? That’s the favor? But that’s an invitation!”
I know. That’s a problem. But I’ll level with you. This is an invitation, but if you grant me permission to drop something in your inbox every time I publish an essay, you’re doing me a favor. Let me tell you how.
If my memory is correct I’ve been using Facebook since the fall of 2004. I’ve been on Twitter since April of 2008. Those services have changed. The news feed used to be chronological. It is not anymore. It also used to be algorithm free. Now, the items we see first, at the top of our feed, are curated by a complex formula based on our past likes, comments, and scroll rates, or the likes and comments of friends in our network.
The goal of services like Facebook and Twitter is not, foremost, to connect us to one another, but to connect us to their service, and then to convert our likes, profile information, commentary, and other contributions into data that can be crunched, analyzed, packaged, and sold to marketers, sales teams, and product developers. Signing up is free of charge, but there is a cost. The extraction is found elsewhere, and it is covert.
As social media services have changed their algorithms and redesigned their news feeds, they’ve made things more difficult for people like me. I’m a writer. I focus on theology and church related concerns. I’ve written devotional material, and I’ve also composed serious essays on pastoral ethics and spiritual formation. I don’t enjoy yelling about it. I have a strong dislike for click-bait and controversy. I’m more dove than hawk. That’s a problem on social media, which rewards the bombastic, confrontational, and flashy types.
I once read a quote from Arnold Schwarzenegger who said that every industry, every endeavor, requires a bit of salesmanship. So, in a way, this is my bit of salesmanship, despite the fact I’m not much of a salesman. I’d like you to do me the favor of subscribing to my blog in order to decrease our shared reliance on social media algorithms to ensure we remain connected. I’d also like to invite you to engage with me and my writing in web space other than that provided by the major social media services.
For all their promise and wonder, and for the many fantastic ways these services do keep us connected (there is some benefit), I think we can all admit that there is a downside to the medium. Most of us are still here because if we weren’t continuously scrolling, we fear we’d be missing out.
Question: What are three things you’ve seen on social media in the past three days that drastically impacted the course of your day which you wouldn’t have heard about through another channel? Question: How many items did you scroll by that occupied mental space which you didn’t need to know and could have done without? If we all logged off for good, we wouldn’t miss too much.
The rise of social media created a scene of sorts, a place to see people and a place to be seen. It is still a scene, as we all know, that people occupy in many different ways. But I’d like our minds to meet elsewhere, preferably in a quieter space that I curate online. If social media is the rave, I’d like to invite you over to the coffee house, a place to clear your mind, think, sober up, detoxify, and maybe learn, exchange ideas, and strengthen a tie with someone you have shared history with. I write this assuming it is more likely than not that we’ve hung out, played a game, been on a trip, or sat in the same room together.
I’m hoping you’ll come over to my website, click follow, and submit your email.
You can still catch me on Facebook. I have a Facebook Page you can like. Make sure you click on the settings wheel and opt to follow or receive updates. Links will also be posted to my Twitter feed. I can’t promise a lot of interaction on those services—I post most of my content through Buffer. I don’t have social media apps on my phone. But if you come by the website I’ll try to interact in the comments, especially if you are someone I know.
Finally, Facebook Friend, most of you are people I have known through school, camps, or church stops. A few I know through writing and publishing. I thank God for you all. Community is a gift, both the strong and the loose ties, and I have no doubt (even if you do) that the God of heaven has bound us together in eternity and time for some good purpose, however mysterious and elusive that purpose may be.
What is God? It is only a subject that has inspired some of the finest writing in the history of Western civilization—and yet the first two pages of Google results for the question are comprised almost entirely of Sweet’N Low evangelical proselytizing to the unconverted. (The first link the Google algorithm served me was from the Texas ministry, Life, Hope & Truth.) The Google search for God gets nowhere near Augustine, Maimonides, Spinoza, Luther, Russell, or Dawkins. Billy Graham is the closest that Google can manage to an important theologian or philosopher. For all its power and influence, it seems that Google can’t really be bothered to care about the quality of knowledge it dispenses. It is our primary portal to the world, but has no opinion about what it offers, even when that knowledge it offers is aggressively, offensively vapid.
While it is not necessary for you to know Augustine, Maimonides, Spinoza, Luther, or Russell to make a run at answering the question “What is God?”, engaging with these voices certainly will not hurt. (When it comes to anything ultimately useful, either with regard to theism or atheism, Dawkins might be relevant at the moment, but will eventually prove inconsequential. He is a polemicist and populist, not a careful philosopher.)
I would, however, recommend acquainting yourself with pastors, theologians, and friends who know these voices and can answer this worthwhile, ancient question with the wisdom of years, scholarship, experience, and the knowledge of the Holy Scripture. Foer is right on this front: the workings of web search engines are not to be bothered with the quality of knowledge dispensed. Instead, seek out flesh and blood companions who know the answers human beings have offered to the question “What is God?,” who are kind enough to have the conversation, and who are willing to help you discern truth from error in your thinking.
I made a decision seven days ago to delete the Instagram app from my iPhone.
Why?
The newsfeed algorithm.
For every one image that I see from a friend or family member, I see one advertisement, three posts from news outlets or businesses or Instagram personalities that I follow, suggested follows, and other junk. I’ve also found that the Discover feature has been bad for my browsing habits, turning Instagram into a black hole.
The next decision I’m mulling over: collecting my images, deleting my account, and spending more time with a point and shoot and imaging software.
I made a conscious decision to delete Facebook from my phone and I never installed Facebook Messenger. I deleted Twitter from my phone, though I access it on my tablet. I limit my Facebook exposure to five minutes a day on my home computer. I’m not only worried about my attention span and the effects social media can have on my anxiety levels. I’m also worried about my privacy.
I suppose that Instagram’s non sequential algorithm (and that of other social media services) is designed to show me more of what I like to see based on my scrolling habits, likes, comments, etc. But it turns out I don’t like what I see. Which has led me to use these services less.
The only service I still enjoy, and only for specific purposes, is Twitter. I’ve been totally disinterested in Facebook for three or four years, hanging on to it because I peddle in words, and I’ve been beaten over the head with the message that being active on social media is essential for getting people to read your stuff.
I’m beginning to think that the clearest path to greater creativity, deeper human connection, increased privacy, and increased quality of life is to shut down social media. If I don’t delete accounts entirely, I may choose to update them by proxy through a service like Buffer. I’m also thinking of relegating everything to this space, to my website, which I set up, maintain, and manage. Pictures, quick missives, essays, etc.
I mentioned above that one of the reasons I’ve remained on social media is so that I have an outlet to publish links to stuff so that you, dear reader, might scroll, spot, stop, and click. I’d like to bypass all that stuff, and I’d like to give you the chance to remain one of my readers without having to turn a data point over to a corporate giant. In the right hand column, subscribe and receive my posts via email. Add my blog to your reader service, if you keep one. And let’s stay in touch.
