Instagram opens up its data to researchers to study teen mental health

Serious concerns have long been raised about the impact of social media on the mental health of teens and young adults.

According to a new report published by The Verge, Meta will allow a group of researchers to examine some Instagram data to determine whether social media is psychologically harmful to younger users.

The site stated that the Center for Open Science (COS) launched a new joint pilot program with Meta to produce independent studies on how social media affects the mental health of adolescents.

The Instagram Data Access Pilot for Well-Being Research will conduct “independent academic” research using up to six months of Instagram data to identify “potential positive or negative associations of Instagram use among teens and young adults.” The study will also look at positive and negative differences across large populations around the world and the reasons for “statistical relationships between Instagram and social or emotional health,” according to the program’s website.

The data researchers can access may include information about how many accounts teens follow, how often they use the app, their account settings, and more.

Researchers will not have access to users' demographic information or the content of their posts and comments.

The data will come from accounts in 24 countries including the US and UK, according to the request for proposals (RFP).

Other scientific studies by researchers at MIT, New York University, and Stanford University have found links between social media use and mental health. That link was reinforced by testimony before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee by Arturo Bejar, Facebook’s former director of safety and well-being, in which he alerted the company and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg via email to the risks their product could pose to young people.

Biggar testified that seven days before the hearing, 13 percent of Instagram users between the ages of 13 and 15 had received unwanted sexual advances. He also testified that his 16-year-old daughter showed signs of a temporary mental health decline when a user commented that she should “go back to the kitchen” under one of her posts.

A month before that hearing, 41 states sued Meta for allegedly misleading the public about the potentially addictive nature of its platforms like Facebook and Instagram among teens.