Facebook Research Found Instagram Can Be Very Harmful To Young Girls

February 6, 2024

"The recent public dressing down of Facebook executive Mark Zuckerberg by Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley and others is a historical turning point in our long struggle to expose corrupt practices in the halls of the high tech censors who allow harmful materials while preventing moral groups like Public Advocate to warn against it," says Eugene Delgaudio, president of Public Advocate.

FORBES REPORTS:

Years of studies by Facebook found its photo-sharing app Instagram to have harmful effects among a significant portion of its millions of young users, particularly teenage girls, internal documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal show-though the company has publicly downplayed the negative mental health issues associated with its platform.

Facebook has conducted in-depth studies on how Instagram impacts its millions of young users for at least three years but is yet to publicly share the findings, according to the Tuesday WSJ investigation.

The newspaper obtained and published slides from presentations in which researchers summarized the findings of what they called a "teen mental health deep dive," including a study which found Instagram makes "body image issues worse for one in three teenage girls."

The company's internal research also found "teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression," a reaction researchers described as "unprompted and consistent across all groups."

Furthermore, among teenagers who reported suicidal thoughts, about 6% in the U.S. and 13% in the U.K. traced them back to Instagram.