Instagram Supports Researchers for Mental Health
Meta Platforms is giving the Center for Open Science (COS) permission to access their data to complete their research on how Instagram affects teens’ mental health.
Instagram is involved in selecting a group of researchers to access their data to study the functionality of its platform and how it affects the mental health of teens. The researchers are from a pilot program launched in partnership with COS and will exhibit the correlation between the usage of the platform and teenagers’ well-being.
For the next six months, researchers will have access to Instagram data, which may include information such as how many accounts a teen follows, how much time they spend on Instagram, the settings on their account, and more. One thing that Meta mentioned is that COS will not have access to the teens’ demographics, posts, or comments.
“Parents, policymakers, academics, and technology companies are grappling with how best to support young people as they navigate online spaces, but we need more data to understand the full picture,” Curtiss Cobb, Meta’s vice president of research, mentioned in a statement.
Thank you for your efforts, Meta.
Put The Blame on Whom It Belongs
When it comes to mental health for teens, Instagram has been under the spotlight for a long time now. This scrutiny began when Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked documents, which included the statement, “teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression.”
Researchers began investigating and contacting Meta regarding this revelation and wanted to start research on how to turn the platform into one that is more accessible and supportive of teens’ mental health. Since then, it was said that features were rolled out and intended to make it a safer platform. However, this did not go as planned due to many concerns, which led to child safety bills and age verification laws for the platform across the U.S.
How Can We Trust You, Meta?
In a social media world where Meta’s social network is taking over, how are users supposed to trust the research? According to Exploding Topics, Instagram ranked 4th for having the highest number of monthly active users and traffic. Even though it ranked 4th, there are many constraints that aren’t allowing these users to express themselves. Lately, Instagram has had more negatives than positives.
Imagine a time when Instagram, without users’ consent, wanted to use their information to train their AI for algorithmic purposes. This should not be the case for a social media platform, especially when users have the option to keep their accounts private. There are reasons why many users have kept their accounts private, and then the platform comes up with such a decision.
Another reason why we are questioning if we can trust the platform is mainly because ever since the war on Palestine began on October 8, 2023, the platform has set many rules and regulations to exhibit the war from the side of Israelis and not Palestinians. The parent company of the social media platform set rules to suspend accounts of users who share information about what is going on in Palestine. During that time, the only way to reach a good audience was for the journalists in Gaza to share their experiences on their stories. Many of those journalists had their accounts suspended and blocked for days. On another note, the information that was shared was called misinformation.
If Instagram were a trusted platform, the research of COS would have been beneficial. But since there is no consent for users to access their data, even if it’s their following list, how are we supposed to keep our trust in the platform? Wouldn’t this stress have a negative impact on the mental health of teens?
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