Depression is a very big problem in todays society. Many people turn to social media to express themselves and their feelings. Instagram wants to take a stand and do something about it. They plan on adding a new feature.
“The platform has introduced a new feature which will aim to help users who might be struggling with mental health issues, by allowing people to flag up when they think a fellow IGer needs help.” Miranda Larbi for Metro.co.uk said.
“I don’t think this would be useful. If you feel there’s a problem then there are other more legitimate ways to report these things. I’m afraid people would abuse it and use it on people who they wanna mess with or who don’t need it,” Sabrina Hackendorn, a junior, said.
Most students feel that this new feature would not be useful and that people would just use the feature for bullying.
“I would honestly rather someone come up to me and confront me in person if they felt that I had a problem, rather then send it anonymously through social media,” Jackie Berchtold said.
“Depending on what the person was saying to me then yes I may use the anonymous messaging,” Payton Greene, a sophomore said.
This is how Instagram plans to layout what it would look like if someone were to send you an anonymous message telling you that they feel you might need assistance.
It will allow a person to either ignore the message or click on an option that gives resources to find help or get in contact with people who can help them.
“I think this will be helpful, a lot of people tend to hide their real feelings and everything that they are going through in their social media” senior Diana Mallis said.
“For example, there are currently over 65,000 posts about self harm on Instagram, which are hidden if you search for them.And there are plenty of other damaging hashtags which promote or glamorize mental health problems – allowing sufferers to swap tips, stories or inspiration.” Miranda Larbi for Metro.co.uk. said.
Instagram has not come out with a launch date yet but feels very strongly about this new feature.
