My first social media account was on Google Plus at the end of middle school. Even before I had a phone, I would sit on my little laptop and update my friends on everything I did for hours. During a potentially dangerous situation with a break-in at my house, my main worry was losing my computer, leading me to question my priorities after the fact.
The other day, I was made aware that Instagram is creating Teen accounts, which “automatically have a protected experience with built-in limits on who can contact them and the content they see,” according to their page on the new feature.
According to the page, this amounts to making all accounts for users under 18 private, controlling content and messages so teens can’t connect with other accounts they aren’t already connected to, hiding “potentially offensive comment and message requests” and sending time settings that notify them after an hour of screen time.
These regulations seem like a step in the right direction for protecting minors on social media from harmful content. However, hearing the phrase “teen Instagram accounts” immediately alarmed me. It felt almost insidious on Instagram’s part — they want more people to use their app, so they can make more money. While the corporation promises a safe online connection between peers, it simultaneously entraps them in a scrolling addiction that increasingly captivates younger audiences.
Fundamentally, I don’t believe social media is helping anybody in the long run, including adults. Yes, it connects us in ways we have never had as a society before, and we can send each other content that we enjoy.
But I find my mental health is always better when I turn off my accounts. Every time I open them up again, I feel all right for a couple of weeks before I slide right back into self-comparison, feeling left out of things I had nothing to do with, doom scrolling and spending hours at a time mired in reels.
According to Kathy Katella at Yale Medicine, teens on social media enter a content vortex just as “the brain is going through a highly sensitive period between the ages of 10 and 19 when identities and feelings of self-worth are forming.”
While Katella does acknowledge that many teens see social media as a place for healthy self-expression and a way to connect with diverse peer groups, she adds that “frequent social media use may be associated with distinct changes in the developing brain, potentially affecting such functions as emotional learning and behavior, impulse control and emotional regulation.”
A study she references of teens aged 12-15 found that “those who used social media over three hours each day faced twice the risk of having negative mental health outcomes, including depression and anxiety symptoms.”
Teens online are exposed to cyberbullying, body shaming and potentially dangerous people.
Any presence online creates a digital footprint, which means any personal information provides a way in for hackers. According to Penn Today, posting something as simple as high school graduation photos “implies a person’s age and, often, the age of friends in the photos,” meaning “scammers can quickly scan sites for this hashtag and possibly find the name of your high school and your graduation year.”
Of course, not everyone gets scammed or stalked, but everyone is putting themselves at risk with their posts, even if their account is private. Maybe other people can’t share content directly, but they can take screenshots.
Not all online damage is criminal, but name one person who hasn’t posted anything they regret. Once something is on the internet, chances are it’s out there forever. We preserve perfect records of past versions of ourselves every time we post, and, although we can theoretically delete whatever we want, cringing every time they look at an old account or a past post is not something teens need to hold onto as they grow into adults.
I say all of this as someone who has been on social media, which I am even hesitant to write here, as anything I say in an online article will probably be around longer than me. Social media use is a part of my life since I promote work on it and connect with the people around me. Yet I still believe that my life is better when I’m not on it, so we should postpone the addiction for young people as long as we can.
Instagram logo. Photo courtesy of Meta.