Using Instagram risks young adult users to develop depression

POSTED ON 06/05/2018 BY RATIMA CHANDREMA

Abstract

This paper discusses social networking sites (SNSs), which are used by around 40% of the world’s population daily to create an online world where users can use to present themselves, interact and stay connected with friends or strangers (Brown, 2018). In 2010, a social application named “Instagram” was developed and become the most popular image-based application. By that, many researches relate to social media and mental health issues have looked at the connection between them. In this paper, it will particularly investigate the connection between Instagram and depression. This paper will examine on common motives of using Instagram by young adults such as coolness and surveillance/knowledge about others and factors such as time spending on Instagram, percent of strangers followed, and social comparison which could be a risk to have depressive symptoms and could affect young adult users.

Keywords: Depression, Instagram, Mental Health, Social Media

Social networking sites (SNSs) give a public/private online space for individuals to present themselves and have remarkably changed the way we communicate, express our identity, do business, and live. Some of the most well-known and popular include Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. These SNS and associated applications are providing a channel for users to stay connected with their friends, communities, and the world (Donnelly, 2017). In these applications, users can share their ideas, personal information, photos and other kinds of media to their friends or even strangers. These abilities encourage users to express things that represent their identity. However, one of the SNS’s essential characteristics is social interaction from both content creator and viewer sides. These mentioned features create an online social world that is fundamentally different than its offline counterpart. To be successful in online social media applications means that the user has a lot of interaction from other users. The way to count those interactions is by looking at the number of their followers, numbers of likes and comment on their posts. It inspires users to present the most positive aspect of their lives in order to gain virtual attentions such as likes, or comments not only from their friends, but strangers around the world (Lup, Trub & Rosenthal, 2015). Most young adult users strive to be recognized in social media which is one of the negative impacts of using social media. This paper will focus on one of the most famous SNS among young adult, aged between 18-29-year-old called Instagram. It will examine on a statement that the usage of Instagram could affect young adult users to develop depressive symptoms.

Instagram and young adults

Instagram

Instagram is an online photo-sharing application which has 800 Million users from around the world (Wade, 2018). It is one of the most popular SNS applications among young adults. Instagram allows users to post pictures and short videos to their profiles. Text-only contents cannot be created on Instagram unlike other social media such as Facebook or Twitter (Lee, Lee, Moon & Sung, 2015). Users can write a caption or use hashtags to describe the photos. To look at the notable social interaction features, Instagram users can like, comment on posts, send direct messages to other users and they are able to tag other users in their pictures as well. Instagram users can choose to make their profile as a public or private profile but it is common for people to set their profile as public. The primary reasons of using a public profile are that it enables other users to able to view, follow the profile, give likes and comments on public posts. Another reason is the public profile can be searchable via names or hashtags on its posts (Lup, Trub & Rosenthal, 2015). By that, using hashtags can promote your pictures as well as your profile to be followed by other users who could be random strangers and gain popularity.

Motives of Using Instagram

Almost 60% of Instagram users are young adults, aged between 18 and 29-year-old (Wade, 2018). Sheldon & Bryant (2016), analysed Instagram users’ behaviors and studied the motives of using Instagram. The results show there are 4 major purposes of using Instagram which are surveillance/knowledge about others, documentation, coolness, and creativity. Moreover, they also found that users tend to put less significant on connecting or interacting with other people, but they focus more on personal identity and self-promotion. Two motives which are important to this paper are coolness and surveillance/knowledge about others.

People normally join activities because of popularity with their friends (Sheldon & Bryant, 2016). In the case of Instagram, it has features which society considers they are cool such as applying filters for your photos, tagging, following trendy hashtags, convenient ways to explore other users’ photos, and opportunities to follow celebrities’ life. Further than the features, Instagram offers a channel for ordinary people to gain popularity and self-promotion. Most of Instagram users’ goal is to gain a significant number of “likes” on their posts. For instance, Dumas, Maxwell-Smith, Davis & Giulietti (2017) have examined the frequency of doing like-seeking behaviors by almost 500 participants and the result presents that about 90% of participants have at least one like-seeking behavior. The most common behaviors are uploading and taking a picture, using a hashtag and a filter while using software or application to modify one’s physical appearance, and purchasing followers and likes are the least common behaviours (Dumas et al., 2017). They concern about the “likes” because ‘likes” are used to justify their popularity, also the number of followers is used to judge one’s popularity (Sheldon & Bryant, 2016). Greenwood (2013) said that it is human nature to have the need to feel seen, valued, and recognized by other people. Therefore, the “likes”, “comments”, and the number of followers have acted as a kind of social support from others. These can directly affect one’s self-esteem and self-worth. For example, participants in a study describe that they feel like winning, happy and flattered when they receive attentions such as likes or comments, on the other hand, it can lower self-confidence and self-esteem when they do not get many attentions (Chua & Chang, 2016).

Another motive that may cause depressive symptom is surveillance/knowledge about others. One of the main reasons for using Instagram is “surveillance/knowledge about others” (Whiting and Williams, 2013). Users that have this motive want to use Instagram to interact with friends, to see visual posts of others, to follow friends and inspirational accounts, to “like” followers’ photos. To look at the term “knowledge about others”, it means that users like to gather other users’ information ranging from socio-economic status, relationship status, number of friends and more which can be found on the Instagram profiles. These actions and behaviors of browsing other users’ photos on Instagram may trigger the presumption that these photos are demonstrative of how those users actually live. As the research from Lup, Trub & Rosenthal (2015) asserts that the act of conclusive other people life by judging from shown photos on Instagram’s profile makes people more vulnerable because they compare themselves with assumed lives of others. This can lower their self-esteem and trigger the occurrence of depressive symptoms.

Discussion

Depression is a sensitive issue to inspect and it could be different for each individual. However, researches by Lup, Trub & Rosenthal (2015), Hernandez & Smouse (2017), Donnelly (2017), and Uhlir (2016) which all study the connection of social media application usage and depression. By these researches, there are three major factors that can lead users to have depressive signs. The first is the amount of Instagram using time, next is the percent of strangers followed, and lastly social comparison. Those 3 variables are all connected together to make a development of depression of Instagram users.

The study from Lup, Trub & Rosenthal (2015) has focused on the link between frequency of using Instagram and depressive symptoms. He found that other variables such as social comparison and the percent of strangers followed are unavoidable to look at the same time. He purposes the links between those 3 factors with the depressive symptom (See Appendix A). The method that he used to collect data is doing a survey of young adult participants whose age is in the range of 18 to 29 years old. He collected information about the amount of time they use the Instagram daily, a total number of strangers who follow them and strangers that they followed, measured feeling scale 1 out of 10 of 4 items from the Social Comparison Rating Scale. Those 4 items are confident, attractive, desirable and inferior in comparison to other users on Instagram. And last needed info on depressive symptoms which measured by using the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression scale (CES-D). The results from Lup, Trub & Rosenthal (2015) study indicated that a significant moderator is strangers followed which associate between Instagram use and social comparison, but it has a slight effect on the association between Instagram use and depressive symptoms. Further, the research reveals that the more Instagram use is related to have a greater risk of depression only for users that have high levels of strangers followed. Still, there is a trend which shows that Instagram use and depressive symptoms can be indirectly associated when social comparison was positive at the highest levels of strangers followed. He interprets the results that more frequency of using Instagram had a slightly significant direct association with greater depressive symptoms. Also, more frequent Instagram use was not associated with social comparison, and more positive social comparison was associated with fewer depressive symptoms. About the number of strangers followed, it significantly controls the correlation of Instagram use with social comparison and it indirectly associated between Instagram use and depressive symptoms. His findings highlight the importance of how many strangers follows are, he said that it can lead to have a negative social comparison because users more likely to judge toward those they do not know and places improper attentions on their characteristics to explain behavior. However, seeing friends’ photos or posts might generate positive feelings because the users know how their friends actually live. Therefore, the conclusion from Lup, Trub & Rosenthal (2015) is using Instagram has negative effects with well-being for those who follow a lot of strangers, but for those who follow fewer strangers on Instagram, it reflects positive associations with well-being.

Another research from Hernandez & Smouse (2017) also investigates the relationship of time spent on Instagram and depression symptoms. It explains that spending large amounts of time on Instagram and seeing other people have happier lives make them believe that life is not fair. The author said that the feeling is worsen when they follow strangers and Instagram has offered an opportunity for users to do it. Moreover, when users follow public figures who have privileged lives, it will lead them to make a correspondence bias, and unsettled negative comparison, finally they could develop low self-esteem issues, dissatisfaction, and depression. Next study from Donnelly (2017), it adds another explanation for Instagram use associates with depressive symptoms by using social rank theory. Users are competing against other users to reach online social media fame and a common goal. On Instagram which fame means having lots of followers and likes on photos. Social rank theory verifies that users will feel overcome or upset if they cannot succeed in reaching the goal. Sloman (2003) states that when people fail to compete others in social rank, it considers as a failure and it can cause mechanisms for suffering from defeat. In relation to Instagram users, they could feel vulnerable and depressed because they are not achieving the Instagram platform goal by not receiving considerably likes and other attentions as other users.
Lastly, one more interesting research which similar to the research by Lup, Trub & Rosenthal (2015). Uhlir (2016) has studied the correlation between social media time and depressive symptoms. His mediation about relationships between variables are some different from Lup, Trub & Rosenthal (2015) by adding Positive self-presentation by others as a variable (See Appendix B). Although, he did not purposeful focus on Instagram the result of his research is interesting. He discusses that spending time on social media has linked to depression which mediated by social comparison. As well as, observing other users’ self-enhancing posts frequently on social media is often to have a social comparison-mediated and positive relationship to depression. Still, levels of favorable self-presentation of users are expected to be indirectly correlated with depression. He concluded that social media still can be good for users who have self-affirming purposes, but it will be unhealthy to use it for social comparison.

Conclusion

Social network applications become a new medium for people in this digital age to communicate and stay connected with other people whether friends or strangers. Most of social applications have offer interactive features such as “like”, “comment” or “follow” which are drawing attention for most teens and young adults. Especially, Instagram which has millions of users around the world and is one of the most popular among other social media apps (Wade, 2018). Instagram is a photo-based app with unique features that provoke users to have some kind of behaviors which may lead to develop depressive symptoms. From many social media or Instagram related studies, it could interpret that there are 3 major factors which are Instagram using time, percent of strangers followed, and social comparison. Those factors are the effects from their motives of using Instagram which 2 directly impacted motives are surveillance/knowledge, and coolness. However, those 3 depression provoked factors are connected together to make users have depression and it might depend on how the users use the Instagram as well. Lup, Trub & Rosenthal (2015) concludes that the users who have a higher risk to develop depression are those who spend a lot of time on Instagram, they follow a lot of stranger accounts to compare themselves with strangers and have a negative feeling toward strangers’ posts. All in all, Instagram is only a tool for online users to be used for earning popularity and connecting with other users. The application itself does not lead users to have depression but the way that the users use the application could contribute depressive symptoms. Still, more studies and research are needed to analyse the link between social media application and depression deeply because depression is a sensitive issue.

References

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Chua, T., & Chang, L. (2016). Follow me and like my beautiful selfies: Singapore teenage girls’ engagement in self-presentation and peer comparison on social media. Computers In Human Behavior, 55, 190-197. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.09.011

Donnelly, E. (2017). Depression among Users of Social Networking Sites (SNSs):

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Greenwood, D. (2013). Fame, Facebook, and Twitter: How attitudes about fame

predict frequency and nature of social media use. Psychology Of Popular Media Culture, 2(4), 222-236. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000013

Hernandez, S., & Smouse, A. (2017). Frequency of Instagram Use and the Presence

of Depressive Symptoms in Young Adults. School Of Physician Assistant Studies. Retrieved from https://commons.pacificu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1611&context=pa

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Motivations for Using Instagram. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, And Social

Networking, 18(9), 552-556. http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2015.0157

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narcissism and contextual age. Computers In Human Behavior, 58, 89-97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.12.059

Sloman, L. (2003). Evolved mechanisms in depression: the role and interaction of attachment and social rank in depression. Journal Of Affective Disorders, 74(2), 107-121. doi: 10.1016/s0165-0327(02)00116-7

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gratifications approach. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 16, 362–369. https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/QMR-06-2013-0041

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Appendix A

The diagram shows conditional associations between Instagram use and social comparison at different levels of strangers followed by Lup, Trub & Rosenthal (2015).

Appendix B

The diagram shows associations and relationships between variables by Uhlir (2016).

The work by Ratima Chandrema is under the license of

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

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Celebrities Online Self-Disclosure of Information Reinforces the Parasocial Relationship.

Posted on 04/05/2018 By Joanne Liew

Abstract

This paper explores the parasocial, or one-sided, relationships between celebrities their and fans through social networking sites (SNS), using Lady Gaga as an example. These relationships occur due to the self-disclosure of information on the platforms. Also, this article uses Twitter and Instagram and different celebrities as examples to analyse how self-disclosure of information helps to reinforce the parasocial relationships between the celebrities and fans. Moreover, it refers to Katz (2014), who suggests that community is the individual who gathers in a space in order to receive their needs through sharing the same interest. Within the community, there are weak ties which help to connect the people with the strong ties. Followed by analysing the concept of online “friends” which associated with the idea of weak ties.

Keywords: Parasocial relationship, Community, Weak ties, Online “friends”

In the age of the Internet, social media has become dominant in our everyday lives. With growing accessibility to the Internet, social media plays an important role in providing people networking services, entertainment or online communication support. Social media is more important to celebrities as they mainly use social media sites to interact and communicate with their fans. Moreover, online engagement with fans assists the appearance of parasocial relationships. As Adam and Sizemore (2013, p.14) suggested that parasocial relationships are one-sided relationships which people usually feel strong friendships with the people who they have never met before, especially the celebrities who have an extensive fan base. Hence, celebrities such as Selena Gomez, currently one of the Instagram’s most popular users, actively uses social media sites to interact with her fans and build relationships often occur the parasocial relationships. According to Marwick and Boyd, social media has changed the relationship between the celebrity and fans as there is an expectation of continuous interaction (as cited in Click, Lee, and Holladay, 2013, p.366). In fact, in order to adapt this engagement, celebrities mostly decided to disclose their personal information online. Thus, the main argument for this essay will be celebrity’s online self-disclosure of information reinforces the parasocial relationships between the fans through the use of social media. This essay will examine how celebrity’s online disclosure of information results on the parasocial relationships, followed by the analysis of how social media forms as a whole in constructing a community, as well as examine the weak ties and ‘friends’ within the community.

Background of Social Media with the Celebrities

Social media networking sites are an online space which people could create a self-descriptive profile as well as building a personal connection through making friends with others (Donath and Boyd, 2004, p.2). Social media networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are the social media for those users who seek for friends, and entertainment. Although social media is facilitating the connection between the people, it is used extensively by celebrities. As it could say, social media has broadened the capacity in helping the celebrities to reach out to their fans in an easier way. Instead of promoting their works in person, they could now utilize the social media to promote their latest works or manage their appearance to the public without any limitation. To gain a higher popularity, celebrities tend to update their status through posting their personal information including photo and video on the social media. Having said that, Selena Gomez, who currently has the most followers on Instagram actively uses social media to interact with fans. As same as the other celebrities, Gomez chooses Instagram as a tool to reveals her personality and personal information such as daily life and relationship to the public. As Selena Gomez has already gained a high popularity, her self-presentation on Instagram will be reviewed by the millions of followers. As it could say, Selena Gomez reveals her relationship status through uploading the video of her boyfriend and the selfie of them on the Instagram (Jessica, 2017). Besides, Gomez even unfollowed her ex-boyfriend on the social media platform. The personal information that Selena Gomez has disclosed helps her to gain a higher popularity, as she provides the information which the fans would like to receive. Self-disclosure of personal information attracts the fans to explore more about the celebrity. Moreover, due to self-disclosure of information, a new phenomenon which known as the parasocial relationship has occurred between the celebrities and fans.

Parasocial Relationship

Parasocial relationship refers to an imaginary relationship or imaginary friendship which an “ideal self-image” that the fans wish to discover (Caughey, as cited in Click, Lee, and Holladay, 2013, p.362). Within the parasocial relationship, the celebrity is expected to play different characteristics such as friend and leader which could provide their fans mentally support, heal their physical wound, or confidence. Thus, fans mainly describe the imaginary relationship with the actual figures such as ‘mother’ and ‘friend’. In other words, a parasocial relationship is conducted by one person who has an illusive face-to-face relationship with the media character. This phenomenon mostly happens between the celebrities and fans. As it could say, social media provides an additional opportunity for the fans to interact and engage with the celebrity. Through the online engagement, fans are able to get closer to the celebrity as they could now access the latest update from the celebrity within a process. Furthermore, Fraser and William (2002) found that “fans drive to develop relationships with celebrities is ‘based on the need to enhance self-esteem through identification with certain values’” (as cited in Click, Lee, and Holladay, 2013, p.364). People with low self-esteem will commonly seek for the celebrity who is similar to their ideal selves. The parasocial relationship offers the people an opportunity to experience enhancing self-esteem and feel closer to their actual selves. To describes that, the parasocial relationship provides the fans they do not receive in the real relationship as well as an additional opportunity to feel close to the celebrities. For instance, Lady Gaga uses social the media platform to build a community and play different roles within the parasocial relationships.

Lady Gaga Self-disclosure of Information on Twitter Reinforces the Parasocial Relationship

Twitter is one of the social media platforms that help to tighten the distances between the celebrities and fans. Hence, a majority of celebrities choose to use social media to enlarge their fan base. One of the examples is Lady Gaga uses Twitter to share her personal information and daily life with her fans in order to maintain and strengthen the fan-celebrity relationship. Also, Lady Gaga tends to reply to her fan’s post by providing different pieces of advice and encouragement. This interaction makes the fans feel more intimate with Lady Gaga as she uses the strategy of self-disclosure to attract more followers to participate in her personal life (Click, Lee, and Holladay, 2013, p.375-376). As it could say, social media enables the fans to participate in the celebrity’s daily life through comments and likes on their posts. The fans tend to comments and likes on the celebrity’s post although it is not much possible to get the response from the celebrity (Ding and Qiu, 2017, p.159). However, fans could still experience the feeling of getting closer to the celebrity within the one-sided interaction.

Additionally, the lines between the “real” and “imaginary” relationship have blurred as Lady Gaga utilizes Twitter to self-disclose her personal information reinforces the parasocial relationship (Click, Lee, and Holladay, 2013, p.367). Lady Gaga uses social media to communicate rather than promoting her music online. Therefore, fans feel like they really know her as they know her daily schedule. Self-disclosure of information assists the fans to know more about Lady Gaga’s daily routine; Fans feel to be a part of Lady Gaga’s life as they consider they know everything about her. Yet, everything within the parasocial relationship is based on the imaginary. As Jeremy and Jimmy (2009) argued that “although online relationships and conversations between the celebrities and fans remain mediated, fans increasingly experience them as real and authentic, reinforcing their feelings of truly ‘knowing’ celebrities” (as cited in Click, Lee, and Holladay, 2013, p.366). Social media allows the fans to communicate with the celebrity and construct a close bond. Therefore, fans believe that they are having a same online space with the celebrities and they truly “know” about them. However, a parasocial relationship is one-way interaction and it is based on the imaginary. Due to the long-term of one-sided interaction, it introduces the concept of parasocial relationship. Social media helps to transform an “imaginary” relationship into a more “real” relationship, thus, fans would feel more “realistic” in the parasocial relationship. On the one hand, social media helps to form a community between the fans and celebrity.

Community

Based on the different interests, fans could have followed different celebrities on the social media. Regarding the followers, the different groups of people build up an online community. As it could say, Morgan (1942) suggested that community is individuals who share the same interests, habits, or custom gather in a group in order to meet their needs (as cited in Katz et al., 2004, p.330). The people who share the same interest mostly follow the similar genre of celebrities on the social media. Using Lady Gaga as a case study, within the community, her fans are named as “Little Monsters” and Lady Gaga plays the role of “Mother Monster” in giving support, confidence, and counseling to the fans. In the online community, Lady Gaga deepens the fan identification by using the name of “little monster” to encourage the fans not to be afraid and avoid being judgmental (Click, Lee, and Holladay, 2013, p.369). According to Click et al., (2013, p.370), they suggested that through involving in the community, Lady Gaga gives the fans a positive point in finding the strength through associated with the other monsters. Moreover, social media connects the members from across the world, who have never met each other in the “real” world into a virtual community (Vitak, 2008, p.40-41). Although the members of the community do not know each other, they gather in an online space to build relationships and exchange the information. Furthermore, community boosts the fans to heal either their physical or mental wound and strengthen the confidence through placing Lady Gaga into the family role, such as “the mother of the community”. Taking the role of the mother figure, Lady Gaga provides the “little monster” a place to strengthen themselves through building up a community.

Weak Ties and ‘Friends’ Online

Weak ties refer to the members of the network who are able to reach the information through the pathways with the connection of the bridges (Granovetter, 1973, as cited in Vitak, 2008, p.19). As it could say, there are many weak ties within a community which helps to link the members together and form strong ties. The people within the community exist the weak ties as the people might not know each other but they share the same interest. As Wellman (1992) stated that weak ties consider providing the informational resources rather than supporting. Thus, it is more important than strong ties (as cited in Carroll, Kavanaugh, Reese, and Rosson, p.120). Having said that, weak ties would likely do more damage to the network as weak ties are the main bridges that supporting the strong ties. Strong ties will be collapsed once the weak ties are being removed. Moreover, Vitak (2008) stated that “weak ties connect an individual to people with whom he has little in common and would likely not be able to connect with through strong ties, such as high-status individual” (p.19). The people might not know each other’s in real life but they could be “friends” online. In addition to this, Vitak (2008) suggested that “offline acquaintances consist of weak ties, those people with whom one may consider as friend, but do not reside within one’s inner circle of friends” (p.78). Social networking sites allow the acquaintances to update their daily life through online profiles, following use the simple form of interaction to maintain the connections such as likes and comments. Through the use of social media, everyone is able to become “friends” by pressing the button of “add” or “follow”; The weak ties could also be removed when they choose to “unfriend” and “unfollow”.

Conclusion

The way celebrities disclose their personal information online reinforces the development of a parasocial relationship between the celebrity and fans. Also, through using the social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter to share a celebrity’s daily life and personal information helps to develop an engagement with the fans. The lines between the “real” and “imaginary” relationship have blurred as the fans could now access the information of a celebrity in anytime. Thus, the relationship between the celebrity and fans are more realistic. Yet, a parasocial relationship is based on one-way interaction and it is what the fans wish to explore. Moreover, social media helps to form a virtual community as the followers within the community share the same interest and receive the similar information at the same time. The concept of weak social ties appears between the people which they do not know each other but share the same idea. Also, social media provides an opportunity for everyone to become online “friends”, whereas this is considered as weak ties and it could be removed in anytime. Overall, the social media is facilitating the development of the parasocial relationship and virtual community.

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The work by Joanne Liew is under the license of

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

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