Facebook and Instagram Negatively Impacting Body Image of Female Teens

Making women feel bad about their bodies and looks is good business for Facebook and Instagram, according to a former Facebook employee. Francis Haugen, a former Facebook product manager, recently revealed some of the behind-the-scenes machinations of the social media giant, which between the two platforms (Facebook is the parent company of Instagram) have 4.1 billion users.

The company’s “profit optimizing machine is generating self-harm and self-hate — especially for vulnerable groups, like teenage girls,” Haugen said at a Senate hearing this month. “These problems have been confirmed repeatedly by Facebook’s own internal research.”

The scope of the problems at Facebook also extend beyond body image, according to Haugen. “I believe that Facebook’s products harm children, stoke division, weaken our democracy, and much more,” she said at the hearing. “The company’s leadership knows ways to make Facebook and Instagram safer and won’t make the necessary changes because they have put their immense profits before people.”

But there is a lot of profit to be made specifically from exploiting young teens; the global beauty industry produced $500 billion in annual revenue in 2019, and the global weight management industry generated an estimated $260 billion in 2020.

“People have always wanted to present the best version of themselves to others,” Jasmine Fardouly, a research fellow at the University of New South Wales in Australia focused on social media’s impact on body image, told Time. “It’s just that on social media people often present a very enhanced, unrealistic version of their appearance.”

As a teen girl, I’ve experienced the harm Instagram causes firsthand. I joined Instagram to look at and share art, specifically paintings and digital media. Naturally, the Instagram personalization algorithms didn’t know that at first, and plastered my “Explore” page with selfies and posed pictures of strangers. I did not know who they were, but was aware that by virtue of being on this page they had already gained enough likes on their pictures to be considered significant. I liked the images, too, and each click felt like I was saying to them, congratulations, you’re pretty.

Even after I had liked enough oil paintings, cat images, and videos of woodworking to hypothetically outweigh the platform’s algorithm’s suggestions, I was still bombarded with altered, perfected images. Soon, what I considered beautiful became what content was presented to me as “beautiful.” Social media is particularly dangerous and impactful because of the blurred distinctions between what’s real and what isn’t not. I became enticed by images of attractive, thin people, and largely stayed on the app to motivate myself to change, striving to be these women, which further reinforced skewed beauty standards.

The marketing tactic at play here is evident and decades old: Beautiful people are happy, everyone else isn’t. For anyone who isn’t a natural, flawless goddess (i.e., EVERYONE), steps toward perfection can be purchased. It’s easy! Recognize that you are rife with shameful, embarrassing flaws, from the texture of your hair to your unimpressive breasts all the way down to your ugly feet. And then find the right makeup regimen to cover up acne, follow dieting trends, or buy lower-calorie supplements to lose weight, and buy new clothes that show off your body in ways these “influencers” have deemed attractive.

According to a September Wall Street Journal article, Facebook’s internal research has indicated for years that the Instagram platform was harmful to the mental health of teen users, particularly that of girls. Among their findings was a survey result that 32% of teenage girls said that “when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse.” The company, however, kept their findings private.

Karina Newtown, head of public policy at Instagram, responded to the article in a blog post, admitting that the platform could have a negative effect on teen mental health. However, Instagram, she argued, “set up a specific effort to respond to this research and change Instagram for the better,” and added that “our job is to make sure people feel good about the experience they have on Instagram, and achieving that is something we care a great deal about.” Newton said the company feels “proud” that Instagram could “give voice to those who have been marginalized,” and that the app could “help friends and families stay connected.”

Haugen claimed the company did not respond to this research effectively and acted in pursuit of greater profits. “Facebook has realized that if they change the algorithm to be safer, people will spend less time on the site, they'll click on less ads, they'll make less money,” Haugen said in an October 4 interview with 60 Minutes.

Why would a company want to cripple my, and so many other teen girls’, self-esteem? I don’t think it’s because the company is evil in that it probably did not set out to hurt people. Their intention is to make massive profits, and if this profit happens to be at the expense of people, even very young people, it seems this company and its leaders don’t care enough to stop.

There are many recommendations to combat these negative effects, including looking at more diverse content, taking breaks from social media, and deleting the app. However, there is no easy solution to the onslaught of insecurity perpetuated by Instagram and similar platforms that profit off of user engagement. It is highly difficult to stop perceiving your body as an object once you start, and the alternative to walk away from the app is not realistic for the millions of teen users.

Dr. Jean Twenge, the author of the book iGen, which explores teens and social media health, said, “If we’re gonna do any kind of intervention with a teen girl, it’d probably be a lot more productive to tell ​​her: People are making money off of every minute that you spend on this [Instagram] app.”