How much is Instagram to blame for the rise in teenage girl self-harm?

This essay was first published in the Wiser! Newsletter on the 5th December 2021.

Between 2010 and 2014, the rates of self-harm, depression and anxiety amongst teenage girls doubled.

The same can not be said for boys in the same age range, or for women who are older. This is unusual and the cause is unknown. However, a pair of social psychologists have been studying the data from North American and UK studies and are trying to get to the bottom of it. Their conclusion; Instagram exploits the natural vulnerabilities in a developing adolescent girl.

“When a boy steps away from the console, he does not spend the next few hours worrying about what other players are saying about him. Instagram, in contrast, can loom in a girl’s mind even when the app is not open, driving hours of obsessive thought, worry, and shame.”

The research suggests that Instagram’s toxicity does not come from malicious coding of the algorithms. Instead, it is the nature of a platform that girls use to post photographs of themselves and await the public judgments of others.