Psychologist Jessica Swainston of the safeguarding app Wing has tips for how people — especially children — can use Instagram safely and with mind to their mental health:
Turn off all push notifications:
Likes, shares and ‘reactions’ from followers have been proven to psychologically impact the user.
All functions are designed to deliver a short-lived dopamine hit to the brain, which is one of the reasons why social media is addictive.
Turning off notifications on your phone helps control this.
Keep it out of the bedroom:
Try to limit social media use 30 minutes before bedtime. Social media may affect sleep quality via the direct displacement of sleep, through delayed bedtime and reduced total sleep time.
Because of the interactive nature of social media, effects may be indirect, through heightened cognitive, emotional or physiological arousal.
If you absolutely must use social media before bed, avoid activities that require high levels of engagement. For example, scrolling through pictures is less stimulating than debating recent political affairs.
Set allocated screen time:
Instagram is designed to keep us ‘wanting more’.
The more time spent on it, the more adverts we are likely to be impacted by – and too much scrolling time is likely to affect our mental health.
Instagram has a handy function whereby you can set how much time you spend on it daily.
Do not tag your location on stories or the main grid:
This allows people to know where you are in real-time, places you have been or where you like to go. It can lead to unwanted contact from strangers.
To ensure your safety, always refrain from tagging your geo-location.
Always report inappropriate content, even if it is a ‘friend’:
As comments are not policed by Instagram, it’s important to report when people are using inappropriate, aggressive, or offensive language.
Reporting them will mean they anonymously receive a warning and are removed from the app if this continues. This protects both you and others.
Hide stories or set to ‘close friends’:
Hiding Instagram stories and only sharing with close friends means that only specific people can see the content you create.
Giving the user control over who views their stories also shifts some of the power back to the user, meaning that you are not constantly checking who has viewed your story, or how many people. You have already set the bar.
Get online:
This is for the parents. Download these apps and make yourself an account. This means you can understand more about where your children are spending their time.
If they’re happy to be ‘friends’, you can see what they post, who follows them and who they follow.
If not, don’t break their trust by spying (50% of children says this leaves them feeling hurt and betrayed).
Unlike other apps, Wing doesn’t report back on all of your child’s conversations, but it does alert parents to their emotions via a daily report.
Take a break:
Millennials and Gen Z are generations for whom social media is the ‘normality’.
Taking a break every now and then for a week or month is a great way to reset and bring focus back to the real world.
If this seems too daunting for your child, suggest one day a week that is an ‘Instagram free’ day.
Unfollow the accounts that make you feel ‘less’ than:
Instagram depicts a false narrative, only showing the ‘best bits’. It is a filtered world, full of photoshopped faces and bodies.
See your (or your child’s) news feed as a daily energy and information source.
Try and fill your feed with your friends, people you know and reputable accounts.
Unfollow airbrushed models, bikini body accounts or essentially any account that makes you feel negatively towards yourself.
Ignore the ‘discover’ page:
This is essentially a rabbit hole designed to capture and monitor what the user engages with, storing it all as data. It promotes aimless scrolling and is personally tailored to capture and maintain the user’s attention.
Try not to engage with posts that are on the main discover page or ‘suggested for you’ as this helps counteract the algorithm and limit screen time.
Go private:
It might seem incredibly simple, but you would be surprised at how many people have personal accounts which are not set to ‘private’.
Switching your account to a private account allows you to control who sees your content.
SOURCE: Jessica Swainston / Wing