A report citing internal research from Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has found that vulnerable teens who reported feeling bad about their bodies were exposed to significantly more “eating disorder adjacent” content on Instagram compared to their peers.
A new report from Reuters based on internal research from Meta, the parent company of Instagram, has shed light on the platform’s troubling tendency to show more eating disorder-linked content to vulnerable teens. The research found that teenagers who expressed dissatisfaction with their bodies were exposed to a significantly higher proportion of potentially harmful posts compared to their peers who did not report such feelings.
The study, conducted during the 2023-2024 academic year, surveyed 1,149 teens about their emotional state after using Instagram. Meta then analyzed the users’ content for three months, focusing on the 223 teens who frequently felt bad about their bodies after using the platform. The findings were alarming, as this group saw 10.5 percent of their content categorized as “eating disorder adjacent,” while other teens only encountered such content 3.3 percent of the time.
The problematic content included explicit images of skinny women in lingerie, a woman’s lacerated neck, and a drawing of a crying figure with phrases like “how could I ever compare” and “make it all end.” Despite the disturbing nature of these posts, they do not violate Instagram’s current guidelines and are allowed on the platform. However, some of this content will be restricted under new teen safety guidelines implemented in response to the research findings.
Meta researchers noted that it is not possible to establish a causal relationship between exposure to this content and negative body image, as teens who already feel bad about themselves may actively seek out such posts. However, the report highlighted the urgent need for Instagram to limit the amount of fitness and beauty content shown to teen users, a sentiment echoed by teens, parents, pediatricians, outside experts, and Meta’s own advisors.
In a statement to Breitbart News, a Meta spokesperson wrote:
We’re focused on ensuring teens have age-appropriate experiences on our platform, and we conduct research to understand how best to do this. The results of this study align with existing external research showing that the interactions teens have and their mindset when going online may play a role in how they feel. Research insights, along with expert consultation, help drive the meaningful changes we’ve made to our platforms for teens and parents. This includes the creation of Teen Accounts last year and our recent major update to generally align the content teens see on Instagram with PG-13 movie ratings. Today, hundreds of millions of teens use Teen Accounts, and we remain committed to ongoing research and continuous improvement to support teens and their families.
The company emphasizes that it has made multiple changes to Instagram in the wake of this research, such as creating teen accounts, which it recently limited to “PG-13” content. The company has also rolled out parental controls on how teens interact with AI on the Instagram and Facebook platform.
Read more at Reuters here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
