We are all aware of the popularity of the social platform, Instagram. Since 2010, Instagram has 
grown to have more than 50 million active users and is second in popularity to Facebook. Instagram’s popularity among young people surpasses Facebook. The majority of users are under 30 years of age.
People are attracted to this platform for a number of reasons including: (1) Functionality – it is easy to use when you are on the go, (2) Visuality – people like to consume information through images, (3) Novelty – it’s fresh, simple, and easy to use, (4) Marketability – it can be used for a number of different purposes, including branding your business.
The psychological draw to collecting “followers” can be addictive. Further, the use of Instagram to share the most positive versions of oneself can undermine happiness. Comparing oneself to others is natural, and Instagram provides a space for young people to judge themselves against friends who have more followers/friends or appear to have a better life. Studies show that students who believed that their peers were doing better socially reported being lonely and less satisfied with their life than those who had more friends.
What do your children need to know about Instagram and staying safe in the digital world?
- Tell your children that people usually present their best self. Adults don’t share the stresses of work and young people don’t talk about a fight with a friend. Everyone experiences ups and downs, regardless of what they post. Knowledge of this sets a context that this is only a fraction of someone’s life.
- Share privacy settings. Accounts can be completely private, in which case new followers must be accepted by the user. Followers that are fake, or posts inappropriate content, can be blocked. Once blocked they can no longer see posts. A new feature also removes recent comments from that person.
- Remind them that real life happens through a range of interactions and experiences. Limiting the amount of time spent on social media increases time spent having real conversations, learning a new skill, going on a hike, reading a book, etc. Experts recommend things like removing push notifications, hiding Instagram links in sub folder, and setting personal limits on the amount of time spent on their screen.
- Teach them to be safe! Scammers may look at their profile and then message them with compliments or engage then in conversations about their interests. Teach your children that sharing personal information with strangers online can be as dangerous as it is in real life. Users who do this should be blocked immediately.
- Talk to your kids about the importance of having real followers, not just numbers. Be suspicious of accounts that:
- Do not have a profile photo.
- Are brand new with a lot of followers.
- Have vague or unverifiable “About” sections.
- Post ads about the same thing.
- Make generic comments or comments that don’t match the post.
- Unfollow you after you follow them back.
- Follow you again if you don’t follow them back (Bots are programmed to keep trying).
- Have a lot of followers but below average posts.
- Have a lot of followers but very little engagement on posts (i.e., likes & comments).
- Follow thousands of accounts but only have a few followers in return.
These kinds of accounts are likely bots or scammers. Block suspicious accounts!
Below are some tools to conduct social media audit on an Instagram account. You can use these to clean up your own account or check the validity of another.
- IG Audit by Authentique (Free) will tell you the percentage of real accounts. https://igaudit.io/
- co ($1) tells you if the account has fake followers by collecting data from the account followers’ engagement level. Specifically, it looks at the ratio of likes and comments based on the number of followers. https://www.fakecheck.co/
- Social Audit Pro ($5 – $20 depending on the number of followers) will provide information about the public accounts, as well as a cleanup tool to remove followers that might be flagged as fake or dormant. https://www.socialauditpro.com/
Instagram can be fun, but we want to teach our kids to use it in moderation and live their life first. We want them to be safe! Once images are shared on a public platform, they are out there. Teach your kids how to protect their reputation and digital footprint from an early age.