Student Research Guide WQ23/ Does Instagram have negative impacts on teenagers?

My major takeaways:

• Instagram can be very detrimental to your mental health; you need to know how to use it in a way that's not harming you.
• Most teenagers do not know that what they see on Instagram is fake. There are a lot of influencers and people that photoshop their pictures. 
• Most people only post their highlights in their life's and not the lows.
• Girls tend to be more effected from the effects of Instagram because of female influencers. 
• Some of the major effects of Instagram are depression, suicidal thoughts, body dysmorphia, negative self-body image, anxiety, stress, etc.
• One thing that would help the problem of the negative sides effects from using the app would be to take breaks, realize that most of what you see on Instagram are filters or fake, know that everyone is going to look different, and that's okay, and don't compare yourself to others. 

Advice for future researchers:

 My advice for further researchers is to make sure to look at as many different SVC databases as possible. If you only look at a few, you won't find much. Another thing that is important is when you search some of your keywords, sometimes it's important to keep it as simple as you can. Sometimes being too specific isn't going to help you find very much. But even if you're struggling with that you might just have to search on google and to make sure that the sources you are looking at are approved and not sources like Wikipedia.  

Reflection on research experience:

My research experience was a little stressful trying to find a lot of sources with good, non-biased opinions. I got hung up on which keywords to use and when. It was hard trying to find sources on some of the provided databases in the SVC library, but I got there eventually. The most interesting part of this researching process was finding out the statistics and things when it comes to teenagers and Instagram. I love learning about new things, and I found it very relatable to me. My interest grew deeper as I still find it so interesting how we don't necessarily realize how toxic Instagram can be. I think it is obviously very important to take your time researching and don't rush it by only writing what you know about the topic, try to find out more information.