Instagram would've ruined me if I'd had it as a teenager

Meta is attempting to make the app safer for young users. But is that really going to help when the problem is young people using it in the first place, asks Olivia Petter

- Olivia Petter

Instagram has finally realised it poses a danger to children. No, the app isn’t banning under-16s altogether, though that would be prudent. Instead, its parent company Meta has decided to prevent them from livestreaming without the approval of their parents. As part of its new Teen Accounts system, they will also require permission to disable a feature designed to blur images that may contain nudity.

These are noble attempts at undoing some of the damage Instagram has undoubtedly already done to teenagers – more than one in 10 adolescents have shown signs of problematic social media behaviour, according to a World Health Organization report from last year. But they seem to be missing the point. Because the risks social media pose to children have little to do with the odd nude image, or the ability to livestream someone’s journey to school. In fact, I’d argue these factors have almost nothing to do with it all.

Because the threats that Instagram poses to teenagers are the same as the ones they pose to us. They’re just magnified – not least because teens spend an average of 4.8 hours a day on social media. By now, we know all about the links between screen time and poor mental health. It’s not hard to join the dots here: more time spent staring at a phone instead of talking to a real person will, at best, exacerbate feelings of loneliness and, at worst, put you at risk of brainwashing depending on the content you’re consuming. As a teenager, though, you’re obviously a lot more vulnerable to all this.