‘Everyone I know is affected': Three influencers share why they pulled back from social media

She was told, at the time, that her account was a refreshing one, combating the overly-filtered profiles that were the norm at the time. It grew to gain thousands of loyal followers — some of them, however, turned sour.

“We all get annoyed at seeing the same faces over and over again,” she says today. “And I think, for a lot of things like covid-19 restrictions, I was probably taking the moral high ground. I’d give out about seeing people post videos of parties and that seemed to annoy people. I was also drinking too much at the time and I think people could see that. So that became something people could tear me down over… and they did.”

In 2020, Fullam saw people, followers of hers, taking pictures of her car and trampoline, trying to deduce whether this was her home. After that, she took six months off the platform.

“I am so much more conscious [about posting on it]. I’m more conscious about my children. I’m more conscious about my location. I’m more conscious about everything, and I hate that. But that’s the world we live in. 

"Everyone I know on social media is affected by that, in some sort of way.”

Social media and, particularly, highly visual apps such as Instagram and TikTok, have been linked to anxiety and depression in adults, according to a survey conducted in the US in 2021. The study, entitled ‘States Project’, saw a multidisciplinary team of researchers from four universities (including Roy Perlis, the Dozoretz Professor of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics) identify more than 5,000 people, with an average age of 56, who showed no signs of depression as measured by standard screening prior to social media use.

When surveyed again later, those who used Snapchat, Facebook, and TikTok were more likely to report symptoms of depression. Research began in the spring of 2020. Most of the prior literature, at this stage, had focused on the effect of social media on children or young adults.

“But in 2022, older adults also use social media, and we know almost nothing about the relationship between social media and anxiety and depression in older adults,” Professor Perlis told Harvard Magazine at the time. “Rates of depression and anxiety were very high early in the pandemic,” he says, “and they’ve remained about three times greater than they would be normally.”

Recent research published in the journal, Psychology of Popular Media Culture, has revealed how using Instagram can negatively impact our mental health. Compared with other social media platforms such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, Instagram appears to be more taxing on our brains, especially when it comes to the ways we compare ourselves to everyone else while using it.

The same study also found that the more time people reported spending on Instagram, the more anxious and depressed they felt.

“Privacy, I learned, is one of the factors that make up mental health and mental well-being,” British-based creator Emma Worrollo (@playful_den) shares. “That was quite a penny-drop moment for me.”

Back in November, Worrollo shared a post she’d written on Substack, a subscription-based publication platform, which detailed why she was planning on stepping back from sharing the same level of content on Instagram as she did before.

“I feel increasingly uneasy about putting photos online of my family,” she wrote. “I’ve always had boundaries and rules, invisible to you, but important to me. But these days? They just don’t seem enough.”

“I just found that the internet is changing in terms of technology,” she says over Zoom from her home. “There are dark things out there, and with AI, you know, we don’t even own our faces anymore. None of this was even on my mind a few years ago. I suppose it just feels more risky these days, sharing photos of my children.”

Indeed, when it comes to putting photos of children online, the answers are murkier, still. A recent report for the London School of Economics, entitled, ‘Preparing for a Digital Future’, showed that 75% of parents who use the internet at least monthly share photographs and/or videos of their children online.

The report showed that parents are more likely to do this with younger children, and far more likely again to only share pictures with close family and friends, instead of “a wide audience,” defined by the researchers as more than 200 contacts.

Indeed, this discussion has been active of late on Mumsnet, an online forum for parents since the year 2000, where there have been active threads criticising parenting bloggers or ‘influencers’ about the transparency of sponsored posts and advertising content by way of perceived exploitation of their children. This has been triggered by an extreme few who, whether by accident or design, have commodified their families, turning them into brands.

“Anything with online content is not about the amount you do, but the style of content you post,” psychotherapist, author and Irish Examiner columnist Colman Noctor says.

“So with pictures of your children, if they’re in any way embarrassing, or could be deemed exploitative to sell product… I don’t know whether children can consent to that. They have the right to be forgotten, too.

“For those set on sharing photos of their kids, I would encourage them to be mindful of the type of content they’re putting out there. It’s not a digital footprint anymore, it’s a digital tattoo — you can’t get rid of it. Technology is built around speed and convenience, so it doesn’t encourage reflection or forethought. 

"That immediacy means there may be things we post, that in hindsight, we might regret.”

A recent systematic review concluded definitively that increased Instagram use was associated with greater social comparison, body dissatisfaction and eating disorders among its users, which may explain the detrimental impact of Instagram on mental wellbeing.

That said, Instagram can be hugely beneficial in its offerings, too. Never before has female entrepreneurship, a space that has never historically been nurtured, been so boundless. Today, a young woman with an Instagram account can market herself, develop brand strategies, create products and secure hundreds, if not thousands, per post. Parents, too, have found communities online that cater to a traditionally lonely space. 

With this, they can ask questions, find confidantes and feel secure in their parenthood. However, while they can prove fruitful, the general consensus is that these spaces rarely, if ever, grow with you at the rate you might need.

“My Instagram channel grew quite a lot during lockdown, and it was around that time I’d left my job and was exploring a new career,” Worrollo says. “I also left my team behind so I had less friends and was looking for new connections, and Instagram did a really good job of all of those things. These days, those needs are met, so I suppose I’ve had an evolution of self, and am now being more intentional with my behaviour. Today, it’s real life first.”

Echoing this is Rosemary MacCabe, a former influencer — she sometimes still takes paid content jobs on Instagram, but far less so than in previous years — who, in recent years, pivoted to podcasting and book writing. Though Instagram, for her, proved lucrative at times, the toll it took on her mental health was not enough for her to continue. “It felt a bit like the tail wagging the dog at one point; I was no longer sharing what I was doing, but I was doing it in order to share,” she says.

“When I stopped, it wasn’t really for that reason, though, it was because I had started to get a lot of criticism. I think people decided what they thought about me and, as I was an influencer, I felt like fair game. And for me, it started to feel as though the cost was too high for the return. In short, it wasn’t making me happy, and it wasn’t paying enough for me to think that was OK.”

A definitive answer to the question of what platforms like Instagram do to our psyché is impossible, given that empirical data is lacking.

So where does this leave us? If science is not yet ready to give a definitive answer about the impact of social media on children, adults and teenagers, then perhaps science isn’t the realm to which we defer. Wellbeing can be observed on an external level and catered to with nuance.

Do you notice yourself feeling bad, hurt, or inadequate when spending time scrolling? If the answer is yes, then remove yourself from it. Of course, this is trickier when livelihood depends on it, but there are ways to separate personal from professional.

Let it be said, however, that though the correct response to social media usage is still not obvious — and if tech companies have their way, won’t be for a long time — the conversation around Instagram’s impact must be debated, still. Are these zeitgeist-friendly, parasocial spaces really worth the trouble they’re creating? Or are we all suffering too much just for a few likes?