After years of accusations about Instagram’s impact on teens, and rebuttals from Meta, the company is seeking to allow researchers to conduct a comprehensive study of the platform’s impacts on young users, in a new expansion of its restrictive research program.
As reported by AtlanticMeta plans to launch “a small pilot program” that will allow researchers to access IG usage data to analyze the impact of app use on teens.
According to Atlantic:
“The company will announce today that it is seeking proposals focused on specific research areas — for example, studying whether social media use is associated with different effects in different parts of the world — and plans to accept up to seven proposals. Once approved, researchers will be able to access relevant data from study participants — how many accounts they follow, for example, or how much they use Instagram and when.
According to the report, Meta will keep some data under lock and key, including user demographics and specific post information. But the idea, at least conceptually, is that Meta is moving toward better understanding IG usage, which will either confirm or dispel the notion that Instagram is bad for teens.
This comes three years after the Wall Street Journal published a successful report According to documents leaked by Meta, the company’s internal research showed that Instagram was particularly harmful to teenage girls, but it chose to ignore the findings, instead encouraging broader use. That report eventually led Meta to appear before Congress to answer for its efforts.
In response, Meta denied the WSJ’s findingsas well as the validity of the report’s findings, explaining that it was only a small-scale research project designed to help guide product decisions. According to Meta, it is not an indicator of large-scale impacts.
But many other studies have also revealed the same thing, that Instagram can have negative impacts on teens. with negative comparison And intimidation among the main concerns identified by mental health professionals.
So hopefully these new research projects will help uncover the truth and help Meta better tailor its policies to provide better protection for teens. The platform is continually adding new tools to help make this easier, and ideally, with more information available, it will be even better equipped to provide the right options to help young users avoid harm.
The Instagram study will be conducted by the Center for Open Sciencewhich will ensure that Meta will not be directly responsible for publishing the results.
Again, Meta has kept its data locked down since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, but hopefully this is a step in a new direction for the company.