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Years of internal Facebook research have concluded that Instagram is toxic to the mental well-being of teens, especially girls, but the social media giant has done little to remedy the situation, The Wall Street Journal reports. “Aspects of Instagram exacerbate each other to create a perfect storm” for young users, reads Facebook’s internal research from March 2020, noting that “the social comparison is worse on Instagram.” The researchers also said the pressure on teenage girls to have the “perfect image” on the platform has been detrimental to their mental health. “We are making body image problems worse for one in three teenage girls,” a 2019 presentation warned, according to the Newspaper.
While company executives were made aware of all of these findings, Facebook’s senior management consistently downplayed the harmful aspects of Instagram in public. CEO Mark Zuckerberg, confronted directly with the platform’s effects on children during a congressional hearing last spring, was coy when asked if any internal studies had been done on the matter, just saying, “I think the answer is yes. The company continued to dodge further investigations to gain more detailed information on the studies, according to the Newspaper. “Facebook’s responses were so evasive – not even answering all of our questions – that they really raise questions about what Facebook might be hiding,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). A spokesperson told the Newspaper the company would be willing to work with lawmakers on the issue and would consider working with “outside researchers” to investigate the issue further.
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