A new study has given credibility to what has always been suspected of social communication applications and their negative impact on adolescents. The result was that the worst offenders were Instagram and Snape Chat.
The study, published today by the Royal Society for Public Health in the UK, surveyed 1,479 young people aged 14-24 and asked how they felt about the difference after using social communication applications and their impact on their mental health, and have spoken in several factors such as body image, sleep deprivation, bullying, and self-identity.
The results show that the worst layers of social networking are Instagram and Snape Chat, and they have had terrifying results about bullying, anxiety and body image. Facebook was not much better, though YouTube was the only one that seemed to inspire more positive feelings than negative emotions.
The reason is that Snape and Instagram are image-based applications, which means that users are not easy to avoid visual comparisons, and both applications ranked high in "fear of loss". Friends constantly at a holiday or enjoying abroad can improve the attitude of "comparison and despair".
Researchers have suggested a way to offset negative emotions, reminding users that life is beyond these applications, and pop-up warnings that will allow people to know that they also use social communication applications.