No cure for the instagram disease?

[AnnasiaB]

Instagram is one of the hottest and most well known social media networks. According to the Hootssuite blog, nearly "one billion" people use Instagram every month. But lets admit it: Instagram is popular and there's no need to ponder to hardly about why that is. For one, the social media site has gained popularity because of its platform. Most celebrities use it, and it allows people to stay in touch and fulfill their personal wants to post pictures, and tell their stories. But little do people know that Instagram in particular is taking over our lives.

It all starts with creating an account, having few followers starting out. To get over this problem, we perform the give and take by following several people and unfollowing them once we get what we wanted. The followers. You see this is one composite about Instagram that can hav people hooked. It draws you in, and makes you think that the more followers you have, the more loved you are. The more people are interested in you. Thats just how it is. Now for the ones struggling to get more followers, in their mind, followers is the key to success, love, and fulfillment. If the goal of having more followers isn't met, we get frustrated, or lose hope, and unfortunately let ourselves down and allow ourselves to be defined by numbers. We think that in our mind the more likes the better we feel.

Nowadays if people were asked which sex is pressured on Instagram, im positive the results would come back very close in numbers. But i feel like females are pressured more. I say this because not only do we convince ourselves that we sometimes aren't good enough, we take pictures and compare ourselves to others. We spend minutes if not ours taking photos, in particular thirty maybe forty photos, flipping through them just to find the perfect one; filtering them and preparing ourselves to look top-notch for the gram. In reality, we become addicted to peoples approval of our appearance. I can admit i have experienced this, and experience it everytime i post a photo. It's a problem, and i couldn't imagine people not feeling this way. As humans, we want approval. We want that surge of endorphins.

Now you may be asking what is Instagram disease. Since there's no websters or google definition, i will explain it for you. Instagram disease is a figurative disease that has also been further researched to be qualified to possibly be added as a mental disorder. It is a drive to feelthe utmost approval of users on IG, with the amount of likes and followers. Instagram disease is so commonly popular, and for the people that use it, were oblivious to the problem. It keeps us hooked pretty much, coming back everyday for more. If we dont aware ourselves about the problem it is causing us, it could lead to anxiety, depression, and a breakdown of our own acceptance.

[Secretgardenblood]

Nice take

[Investigator]

"Instagram disease is a figurative disease that has also been further researched to be qualified to possibly be added as a mental disorder. It is a drive to feelthe utmost approval of users on IG, with the amount of likes and followers."

Er, not really. Instagram is no more addicting than, say, Facebook or Twitter or Reddit or even GAG. We need to break terminology down, because there's actually two kinds of "cravings" at play here:

1. The desire for likes and followers; an entire generation of people have been weaned on "fake" attention and admiration. I say "fake", because, while all of these social media platforms claim (in no uncertain terms) that all of the accounts on the site are authentic and belong to real people, we already know for a fact that "like bots" (little scripts designed to impersonate real people and "like" certain people's pages at certain intervals, in order to give them illusion of being a person who thinks and makes decision) on both Facebook and Twitter--in order to boost one's popularity ranking on the platform--are a thing. If you've ever been on the Deep Web, it is actually VERY easy to purchase these bots using Bitcoin. 200 likes a day can you run you $50, which is a small price to pay for fame and appreciation. There is basically no way to tell if person you are engaging with is real or not, but in most cases you assume they are. I mean, why else are you using "social media" if not to engage with other people SOCIALLY?

2. The desire for material engagement; likes and follows on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and GAG all have different connotations. On Facebook and Twitter, likes mean "I agree with this", but in such fashion to communicate approval of the POSTER, whereas on GAG and Reddit (though this differs wildly between subreddits), likes only communicate an approval of the CONTENT of the post, not the poster themselves. Sure, here and there, you will find people asking about personal questions, but those are typically situational to the person as a matrix of problems to be solved and not as a lifestyle to be endorsed; occasionally, you will find questions reminiscent of "r/rateme", but those are also far and few between. If you create a MyTake, for example, then liking that MyTake only communicates to someone that an interesting or unique perspective has been posted; it generally doesn't directly correlate with approval of the person as a whole--and that is the distinction Instagram, Facebook and Twitter often fail to make. Instead of making likes reflect on what the person has to SAY, they instead tend to reflect--either positively or negatively--on the person as they ARE. Ideas and actions are completely separate, yet when you "like" something on a platform whose primary goal seems to be about expressing yourself as an individual, ideas and actions tend to become one and the same.

The combination of both 1 and 2 contribute to issues on all social media platforms which are effectively marketed as "personal endorsement centers" instead of "observation threads". Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are so very cancerous in this regard, because they are marketed toward people, based on "being 'different', as autonomous agents, than all the other sheep on the site", instead of "this is a place where you can talk to people about things, and get criticisms about life and stuff". I'm pretty sure that both Facebook and Twitter are WELL aware of how their platforms are used and they fully encourage it.

After all, "this is a business, not a charity", right? The more engagement--negative or positive--the more traffic, the more money flows in. Peoples' mental states be damned.

[Mencyclopedia]

Instagram is toxic as fuck, because people will only show you the good parts of their lives, and the "models" will only show themselves after ten filters and photoshop brushes have been applied.

This will always make you think your life is inferior, when its mostly just lies.

[crazy8000]

There are a cure.
Just don't use any of that kind of media. an other is to erase all of those kind of services.
Yes, everyone that has the addiction gonna go through a withdrawal period just like a drug or alchohol addict.

The attitude part many attracted through media also have working treatments, very unpleasant for the one's turning themselves in to people with attitude problems, but they work.

Everything has to do with will and taking themselves in the neck, realization.

[InTimoreDei]

While Schizophrenia and Bi-Polar are disorders that you cannot do anything about because you're born with them, this "instagram disease" people complain about is completely avoidable and something can easily be done about it.

[Phoenix98]

There is a cure it's called not being on Instagram, or not being on your phone like a zombie, should try it sometime it's great.

[GreenGold1992]

I just stick with facebook, always have, always will