Technological Determinism and Instagram - Kathryn Staples

Anxiety about the interactivity of new digital media can be seen through technological determinism in Facebook's awareness of Instagram's harmful effects to teenage girls (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/sep/14/facebook-aware-instagram-harmful-effect-teenage-girls-leak-reveals).

As we have read in Baym's work and then reaffirmed in last week's class, technological determinism is an external agent that acts upon and changes society (Baym, 2015).

In Gayle's article, we are shown how Instagram is harmful, especially to the body image of teenage girls. Instagram is responsible for teenage girls feeling bad about their bodies; even those who didn’t feel good about their bodies to begin with are made to feel even worse with Instagram, “Thirty-two per cent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse” (Gayle, 2021). Mental health was also something that was declining in teenage girls, “Being surrounded by constant images of the ‘perfect’ life and seemingly perfect bodies can also have a big impact on how you feel about your own life and appearance, and it can be really hard not to compare yourself to others" (Gayle, 2021). Some even reported having things like depression, low-self esteem and eating disorders. From personal experience, my younger sister who is 17, told me that she and every one of her friends tried to ‘fix’ their bodies with diets and make up and that it was because of Instagram.

Comments

  1. Simone ShanksOctober 12, 2021 at 2:28 PM

    Hi Kat!

    I think you did a great job summarizing the article and relating it back to technological determinism. I agree with your examples when you discussed how the new digital media platform Instagram created negative effects on teenage users introducing negative relationships with their bodies and self-esteem. And although a painful reality, your real-life example of how your sister and her friends have been negatively impacted by Instagram only solidifies the reasoning for anxieties surrounding technological determinism and how it can easily impact and shape us in various ways both consciously and unconsciously.

    It was a pleasure reading your post!
    - Simone

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