Instagram is taking steps to help improve their users’ mental health with the creation of its new Wellbeing Team.
Millions of people around the world use Instagram to visually share and document their lives. However, the unrealistic portrayal of how other people live has been proven to negatively affect how some users view their own life. This has led to anxiety, bullying, depression, a negative body image and other mental health problems.
A survey released by the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) of Britain rated Instagram as the worst social media platform for a person’s wellbeing and mental health. The result of the survey seems to have an impact on the company and Instagram has created a Wellbeing Team tasked to combat the negative feelings and insecurity using the app engenders.
According to Instagram’s head of fashion partnerships Eva Chen, the company is focusing wholly on the community’s wellbeing.
“Making the community a safer place, a place where people feel good, is a huge priority for Instagram,” Chen said. She also emphasized that its users’ wellbeing is one of the company’s top priorities.
The company is said to have “reassessed priorities” last year and has started rolling out new features that help make the platform a more positive space. The company has introduced content moderation tools that automatically hide inappropriate comments. The feature also gives users the capability to personalize filters so that any comments they might be offended by are deleted.
Facebook’s sister company has also created teams that check reports sent in by people who believe that a particular user might require mental health assistance. Instagram would then give the user access to groups that can help with their situation.
However, there’s no concrete detail on the exact tasks of the Wellbeing Team and how it will operate. What is certain though is that Ameet Ranadive, former VP of Twitter’s revenue product, is part of the team. He has been tapped to be the group’s director of product and is tasked to “prevent spam, abuse and harassment” on the platform.
