E-Paper
In my opinion: Only Face to Book on -ve Insta impact is mine
Facebook’s research, based on surveys, as per Frances Haugen’s papers, claims: “Thirty-two per cent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse”
I have not used the Meta-owned Facebook in a little over a decade. I am not on Instagram.
Yet, Frances Haugen’s “Facebook Papers” impacted my Meta-sheltered existence as much, if not more than it did the select cabal of journalists who attempted to form that exclusive coterie that would bear the responsibility of releasing insights into the “real” Facebook to the world.
A media feeding frenzy left that “for-the-greater-good” attempt in a mess of embargoes not adhered to. (Ping! A chance for media to introspect on how profit drives motives).
The key Haugen reveal that slapped me awake is: Facebook knew about the “dangers” Instagram posed to 14-year-old girls and did nothing about it.
Facebook’s research, based on surveys, as per Ms Haugen’s papers, claims: “Thirty-two per cent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse”.
The inference: Meta-owned Instagram feeds on the insecurities of adolescent girls (13-14-year-olds specifically was the age group that surfaced), as a source of eventual, if not immediate revenue.
I have a daughter who is 14. She is on Instagram.
In fact, post the Haugen expose I have begun to have active conversations with her on her “smartphone” life. The Meta-fetus that she is, her ’verse is increasingly multi-woke and less uni.
When she logs on to her phone, this is the order she accesses her apps: Instagram, Twitter, Discord, Pinterest, and Reddit. (I have her permission to share this; always take permission from a 14-year-old).
I have no idea what Discord is.
Of those five I only access Twitter. So, I attempted to have multiple talks with my 14-year-old Miss Woke-ness (who has missed the post on keeping her clothes/cupboard/room clean), about the “danger” Instagram is to her.
She is fully aware. She, with no confusion or “sense of self-realisation dawning”, outlined for me exactly why Instagram is “bad for teens”.
She knows. Yet she lives on Instagram.
Her friend’s circle, her entire online messaging and “staying in the loop” system, her life inputs, all Instagram.
Apps like WhatsApp, Facebook, and even email do not exist for her at this point in time. Not unless her dad is trying to share “something amazing” his Twitter feed led him to.
Fourteen-year-old girls are insecure and Instagram feeds on that insecurity to put my daughter at the risk of going into a dangerous, never-ending loop of “how can I fit in?” “How can I be sexier?” “Am I good enough?”
There is money to be made from any human insecurity. Global sales for the beauty industry are $500 billion, as per Lindsay Grouse of the New York Times.
The question my wife and I am dealing with is: whose responsibility is it to safeguard my 14-year-old daughter from the dangers of Instagram?
Is it, can it, must it be Meta’s (FB)? Or Mr Zuckerberg’s? Or the government? Or an online army of Judge Dredds (a dated pop reference that should tell you how old I am)?
Or, is it mine? The father of a 14-year-old girl who is on Instagram.
Insta did not force my girl to get on. Insta is free. Just like every good, bad or dangerous reality out there in the real (or metaverse) – it’s free, and the choice to make is yours, mine and my 14-year-old daughter’s.
As long as my daughter is under my care that responsibility is mine, and mine alone.
I am bemused by the governments of the world and especially the US consistently trying to bring the Face to Book. Perhaps they have to. If 1.93 billion netizens are active users of anything, the government has to get involved. For the greater good, of course.
The fact of the matter is, for the good of my 14-year-old daughter (and my peace of mind) I have to get involved; not in how the ’Gram is run or not run; not in what Facebook can or cannot influence; not in the Meta world when it does finally dawn.
I have to get involved in my 14-year-old daughter’s life.
Get involved using my non-woke, traditional Gen-X values and hard-as-nails experiences of my own life, to give my daughter the set of emotional, mental and, ahem… spiritual tools she needs to survive and thrive in a world I do not fully relate to.
Instagram is free, but it is my job to ensure my daughter does not pay the price.
Roopesh Raj can be contacted at roopesh.raj@htlive.com
