Digital Smarts - [current-page:title-plain]
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For most teens, Instagram is the “go to” app for communicating (72 percent of teens use it according to a recent study by the Pew Research Center), so it is no surprise that many are finding a whole lot of drama, bullying and gossip on the platform. Unfortunately, due to its widespread nature and size of the app’s distribution mechanism, rude comments or harassing images can go viral within hours. Like Twitter, Instagram also makes it easy to set up new anonymous profiles, which can be used specifically for trolling. Most importantly, interactions on the app are often hidden from the watchful eyes of parents and teachers, many of who don’t understand the platform’s intricacies.
The company has recently announced a set of new features aimed at combatting bullying, including comment filters on live videos, machine-learning technology to detect bullying in photos, and a “kindness camera effect to spread positivity”, but their effectiveness is yet to be seen. Instagram is many teens’ entire social infrastructure and some may argue that it is inevitable for bullying to happen in any social environment.