For the past three years, Facebook has been conducting studies into how its app Instagram 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.

But in public, Facebook has consistently played down the app’s negative effects on teens, and hasn’t made its research public or available to academics or lawmakers who have asked for it.

Here’s...

For the past three years, Facebook has been conducting studies into how its app Instagram 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.

But in public, Facebook has consistently played down the app’s negative effects on teens, and hasn’t made its research public or available to academics or lawmakers who have asked for it.

Here’s what you need to know about how Instagram is affecting its young users.

Key Takeaways
1. The algorithm can push teens down a toxic rabbithole of content.

Angela Guarda, director for the eating-disorders program at Johns Hopkins Hospital and an associate professor of psychiatry in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, estimates that Instagram and other social-media apps play a role in the disorders of about half her patients. “It’s the ones who are most vulnerable or are already developing a problem—the use of Instagram and other social media can escalate it,” she said.

One Instagram user, Lindsay Dubin, 19, recently wanted to exercise more. She searched Instagram for workouts and found some she liked. Since then the app’s algorithm has filled her Explore page with photos of how to lose weight, the “ideal” body type and what she should and shouldn’t be eating. “I’m pounded with it every time I go on Instagram,” she said.

2. Instagram is hurting teens, but they can’t log off.

In one study of teens in the U.S. and U.K., Facebook found that more than 40% of Instagram users who reported feeling “unattractive” said the feeling began on the app. About a quarter of the teens who reported feeling “not good enough” said the feeling started on Instagram. Many also said the app undermined their confidence in the strength of their friendships.

Instagram’s researchers noted that those struggling with the platform’s psychological effects weren’t necessarily logging off. Teens regularly reported wanting to spend less time on Instagram, the presentations note, but lacked the self control to do so.

“Teens told us that they don’t like the amount of time they spend on the app but feel like they have to be present,” an Instagram research manager explained to colleagues, according to the documents. “They often feel ‘addicted’ and know that what they’re seeing is bad for their mental health but feel unable to stop themselves.”

3. The way forward is unclear.

In the interview, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said he doesn’t think there are clear-cut solutions to fixing Instagram. He said he is cautiously optimistic about tools Instagram is developing to identify people who are in trouble and to try to “nudge” them toward more positive content.

Two Facebook researchers said they are also testing a way to ask users if they want to take a break from Instagram. Part of the challenge, the researchers said, is they struggle to determine which users face the greatest risk. 

In the internal documents, Facebook’s researchers also suggested Instagram could surface “fun” filters rather than ones around beautification. They zeroed in on selfies, particularly filtered ones that allow users to touch-up their faces. “Sharing or viewing filtered selfies in stories made people feel worse,” the researchers wrote in January.

4. Potential solutions undermine Facebook’s bottom line.

In March, the researchers said Instagram should reduce exposure to celebrity content about fashion, beauty and relationships, while increasing exposure to content from close friends, according to a slide deck they uploaded to Facebook’s internal message board.

A current employee, in comments on the message board, questioned that idea, saying celebrities with perfect lives were key to the app. “Isn’t that what IG is mostly about?” he wrote. Getting a peek at “the (very photogenic) life of the top 0.1%? Isn’t that the reason why teens are on the platform?”

Read the full story by Georgia Wells, Jeff Horwitz and Deepa Seetharaman here.