Student Research Guide WQ23/ Instagram and Impact on Teens

The major findings of this research include:

• Body dissatisfaction is prevalent with the overuse of Instagram.
• Instagram increased anxiety, depression, feelings of self-harm, and other mental health concerns among teens.
• The overuse of Instagram led to addiction, which interfered with students academic performance and caused procrastination and poor academic behavior.
• Cyberbullying is an apparent issue with the use of Instagram, and with how easy it is to access Instagram, many teens are at risk of being bullied.
• Relationships are affected by how the photo-based platform leads many to compare their relationships with those presented online.

Advice for future researchers:

My advice for future researchers is to use scholarly sources like PubMed, Academic Search Complete,and ProQuest. What also helped with researching the impacts of Instagram was using Google Scholar articles that were peer reviewed and written by people with the needed credentials, which is very important in making sure to have credible sources. For future research, I advise staying away from popular opinion-based articles, as they aren't backed with data and have bias in them. 

Reflection on research experience:

Research was made easier because the instructions in the assigned assignments were clear as to what was needed for research. One thing that I did get hung up on was certain databases that didn't include my topic, which was hard at times, but to combat this problem, I would just use other databases to find credible sources. Out of the entire research process, I think the best part is the beginning, when figuring out what to research and what topic to choose, as well as the end, when everything comes together and the research is finally done. After researching the topic of the impacts of Instagram, it has made me more cautious of the time I spend on the platform, and I have now limited my time on the app as I am now aware of the dangers of too much social media.