The way people perceive each other changes from day to day in this fast-paced world we live in today. Before, everyone would only be able to share their opinion on things they knew. If they did not know somebody, they would usually refrain from any comments.
But today we live in a world where individuals from all over the world can connect and share their thoughts and opinions on things they maybe don’t know anything about. In some cases had a positive effect, but in others had devastating.
Young people on Instagram
The biggest users of this social platform are young people. Over 50% of users of this app are teenagers. As we all know being a teenager is hard. You get in contact with things that you have not seen before, and you get in situations that maybe you should not be in.
Regardless of that this social media platform has special rules and guidelines that they enforce on people who want to harm others. But they can’t help a teenager when it comes to their own perception of their body.
Instagram is famous because thousands of beautiful posts get uploaded every minute. Most of those pictures have perfectly fit and happy people in them. The average teenager sees this and thinks that his or her body is not good enough by social standards.
That can have a detrimental effect on people and their sense of self-worth in the future. The smart thing would be to keep your kids informed and tell them that they should separate regular lives from their perfect online lives.
Adults on Instagram
The body image issue is not just present in teenagers. It also could leave a bad experience for the adults that use this social media platform. As people finish their work and go home feeling tired, many go online to relax and shut their brains off for a while.
As they are serving thousands of pictures on this app, many get a feeling of depression since they don’t have the kind of lives that you can see on many popular profiles. There have been many studies linking increased depression with people who use social media platforms. Instagram is one of the biggest and has the most effect on people.
The biggest danger is that you can’t figure out what’s going on when a friend or a family member starts suffering from depression. Some cases have ended in tragedy because of social media and the people living in the same home didn’t have a clue about what’s going on.
The pros and cons of using Instagram
There are many reasons why one should use this particular social media platform, but like everything in this world, there are also negative sides if used more than recommended.
The Pros of using Instagram
- You can connect with many of your friends
- There are a lot of amazing artwork
- You can find out about special offers in your local business
- You can cheer up when you are down
- There are lots of cat and dog videos, and everyone loves those!
The Cons of using Instagram
- Some posts can get you even sadder when you are feeling down
- Some people are more interested in their image online than their real image
- There are lot of adult content on a social media platforms that is used by kids
- Lots of your friends spend time nurturing their relationships on Instagram but so much in real life
- It is one of the biggest invaders of privacy
We understand that everyone has their reasons why something is good or bad, and we believe that you might agree with some of these thoughts. The most important thing is to understand that you are in charge of your life on every social media app and you should only do what makes you happy.
How to protect yourself on Instagram
Instagram has put some forms of protection for the average user when it comes to harmful things. The rules and policies that they practice prohibit complete nudity and hate speech. If you want to protect yourself or your kids even, you would have to change a few things.
We would recommend that you filter for explicit content, which will protect you from many forms of gore, partial nudity, and things considered controversial. Additionally, if anyone is bothering you, you can block them making all your posts invisible to them. There is no limit to how many persons you can block so if anyone gets on your nerves hit that block button.
The best way to keep yourself safe on this social media platform is to lock your Instagram account with everyone that doesn’t know you. However, you should know that even if you put your account on private mode, there are ways other people can see your Instagram profile picture at full-size accounts. The only way to ultimately keep your privacy intact is to avoid creating an account, but that may be too harsh.
How Instagram stories stole the show
The new feature that Instagram implemented not so long ago is “Instagram stories.” That gives you the ability to share your whole day while still not over-posting. The location of these stories is at the top part of your Instagram app, and that is where all the feed from the stories will constantly be updated.
Many have said that they have ripped off snap chat and integrated this feature into their app, and we agree with them. But we also don’t think this is a bad thing! Snapchat has been declining in users for quite some time and Instagram being the most popular of all social media platforms just created a new stage for the users of Snapchat to continue and do their thing.
We can’t wait for new features that Instagram is surely going to implement in the future because all the ones so far have been a huge success.
Final words
As you can see, social media can be very harmful to your self-confidence because people don’t always think about what they say. If you realize that you’re too affected by Instagram, you should change the way you use it, or take a break for some time. Your health and feelings are far more important than the number of your followers.