Quotation: Page 15
Comment: While reading through and analyzing the research done for the ‘Instagram Scandal’, this chart of statistics really stood out to me. This question reports self-reported percentages of people selecting particular ways that they interacted with Instagram relating to the list of topics down the left side of the chart (i.e. SSI, Body Issues, Loneliness, etc.). For this chart, the percentage corresponds with colors such that the higher the percentage the darker the color of the tile and the lower the percentage, the lighter the color. From this specific investigation, it was found that most people used Instagram to distract themselves and disengage with a specific experience. In turn, this means that Instagram is rarely used to raise awareness, learn more about the experience and or inform family and friends about the situation. These statistics did not differ between teens and adults. For more context, here’s some specific data. When it comes to the idea of SSI (suicide and self injury), it was collected that 49.40% of people use Instagram to distract themselves from the issue and 32.70% of people use Instagram to disengage from the problem. For the topic of sadness and depression, similarly, 54% of people use Instagram to distract themselves from the issue and 24.4% use Instagram to disengage. From personal experience with SSI and depression, I can conquer these stats, but have insight to the reality of them. When you’re sad, alone and in this dark hole that you feel you can’t escape, it’s so easy to turn to Instagram or any form of social media to take your mind off of your own life and focus it on others. The problem with this however, is we become obsessed with what others’ lives entail in a false reality behind the screen, and forget to fix and heal ourselves which is the true reality. Instagram gives people who are in harm or deep sadness an opportunity to take a break for just one moment, but the second Instagram goes away they are sucked back into that dark place. Instagram is doing more harm than positives for people living in a dark and stressful place.
Question: Do you use Instagram to escape reality, or do you actually find Instagram as a useful and helpful form of social media?
