Technological Determinism and Instagram - Simone Shanks

Baym’s theoretical perspective of technological determinism can be described as the effects that technology and social media have on society’s structure and values (Baym, 2015). A great example of this is the effects that the social media platform Instagram has on teenage girls. A Facebook study looking to see how Instagram affects its younger users concluded that as a result of using the platform 32% of teenage girls and 14% of teenage boys admitted that it made them feel worse about themselves and their bodies and even led to suicidal thoughts in 13% of British users and 6% of American ones (Bursztynsky and Feiner, 2021). Instagram is known for its users to only post the best version of themselves and it is common for people to even edit and alter themselves to keep up this unrealistic persona. These activities are extremely harmful to others, especially younger, more impressionable youth to whom account for more than 40% of Instagram users (Bursztynsky and Feiner, 2021). This technological determinism has created a lot of anxiety as parents and users are wondering why Facebook isn’t doing more to prevent and protect teens from these harmful effects and standards Instagram creates as it is clear they are aware of the situation since Facebook was the one who conducted the study themselves. To learn more about Facebook’s study on Instagram reference in this post, please click HERE.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

- Simone

Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 15, 2021 at 12:09 PM

    Hi Simone,
    I really enjoyed reading your post and it relates really closely to my post. Baym explained the idea of technological determinism is an outcome of users unable to use technology, leading them to be used by it. In the case of teenage girls and their social anxiety caused by technology, I think it's because they dont know how to use social media. It's structured as a platform for only displaying the good in life. But they do not use Instagram, for instance, for any other reason display the good in life. I think, maybe, if teenage girls liberated themselves from what they they they're supposed to post, and instead, post what they actually want to post they would be much happier. And relating it back to Baym, they would be the one using the technology and not the other way around.

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