Argumentative Essay

The Topic: The Influence of Instagram on Teenager’s Mental Health

Instagram Affects Jakarta Teenagers’ Mental Health,
Agree or Disagree?
On this 21st century, social media has already adhered into people’s lives, especially
for young people. According to APJII, a survey research, around 6,3% Indonesian teenagers
are using internet for social media intentions. Furthermore, years to years, due to vast
technology, social media always comes with offering more various innovative platform.
Instagram is one of social media platform in which now has been increasingly popular among
Indonesian young people, mostly, for Jakarta teenagers. Instagram is already succeed in
attracting teenagers’ daily lives intensely. Hence, it’s inevitably that Instagram has more
influence on them—not only for merely entertaining, but also shaping their minds and
behaviours. Unfortunately, to some extend, it could be driven to have a propensity for
disrupting teenagers’ mental health. There are several factors why Instagram can affect Jakarta
teenagers’ mental health, which are: making high addiction, causing depression, and leading
them to be a bystander.
First, social media, Instagram, has been an irrecusable addiction for teenagers mental
health. In fact, Researchers from Chicago University deduced that social media craving is
bigger than cigarettes and alcohol can do. It’s because of amygadala and striatum impulse
behavior operating system harder and the pattern works of those regions make the activation
more increased than other addicts. In other words, social media creates big impulse to the brain
in which makes people stronger attached to it. Regarding my short-period survey on around
100 respondents of Jakarta’s teenager, 87,8% of middle and high schoolars log on to Instagram
when they are bored or merely checked their timeline post. Moreover, “double tapping”
someone’s post, scrolling to discover’s post or even looking over Instagram’s story make
teenagers unwittingly found it hard to stop. According to a research, it is caused by the
dissatisfaction emotion that they get when check the timeline or mostly the likes and comments
of their posts. It gives more triggers to keep them checking the Instagram often. Thus, it will
become a compulsive certain activity in which leads to a perilous habit, that can interfere their
focus on other important activites such a school.
Second reason why Instagram matters to teenagers mental health is because it can cause
depression. Posts on Instagram are having more tendency to shape teenagers thoughts about
something. In that means, many posts sometimes present what something looks like or how
something are going—in a better way of what people do expect. Therefore, it’s easier to
construct teenagers mind of considering something idealized. This can lead teenagers tend to
compare their lives to others and expect something more from their own lives. For example,
how beauty bloggers tend to shape the proper beauty standard that would be considered by
teenagers. So, it can harm their mental health because it will lower their self-confidence and
make them depressed if they assume that they’re not good enough of their beauty. Furthermore,
FOMO phenomenon (fear of missing out) is quite happened nowadays around Jakarta
teenagers. FOMO occurs when someone feels pressure to do something everyone’s doing. For
instance, they do the bottle-flip challenge which has been trending and 52,4% of my
respondents said that at least they ever did that Instagram trending challenge. In additionally,
to some of my respondents confessed that gaining a lot of followers and likes is a necessary
thing. They said that it boosts their happiness and self-confidence. Even, they have other
accounts in which are only intended to gain followers and likes. It may be a trigger for pushing
them too hard to gain what they expect. And if they feel what they get is not good enough,
consequenly, it can quite make them depressed.
Last, but not least, too much Instagram activities can lead someone to be a bystander.
Nowadays, bystander can occur not only in a real or pyshical dimension but also in digital
room. It can’t be denied that the opportunity of being a bystander is higher on social media,
especially Instagram than other real compartments. In my view, bystander effect has already
been evolved into a different shape; it’s not only about the absence of urging to help someone
when many people are present, but it comes when people either just do nothing or find it
pleasant thing to watch someone in distress. This type often happens around Jakarta teenagers,
currently. We can easily find a lot of hate speech of bullying or harassment, on comments
collumn of someone’s post. And not a few of users, just watch and don’t do nothing. Moreover,
according to an article, one of gossip account Indonesia in which also gives the hate speech, is
among the 10 most hits account on Instagram. There are a lot of Jakarta teenagers who follow
and also take it as an enjoyed thing to check over their posts of hate speech.
In brief, social media has been a strong influencer on teenagers lives. One of social
media platforms, Instagram, has currently been a well-known platform around Jakarta
teenagers. It is succeed to attract people’s mind and behavior, especially for teenagers.
Therefore, teenagers tend to get interfered easily on their mental health. It comes because of
the unwittingly of instagram’s effect which are leading them to be an high addict, a depressed
ones and a bystander. Thus, all of those reason are harmful to their mental health.
 References
http://blog.degreed.com/10-ways-social-media-affects-our-mental-health/ accessed on April
16th 2017
http://www.lifewire.com/what-is-social-networking-addiction-2655246 accessed on April
29th 2017
http://ron-sheese.wikidot.com/tutorial-6-2 accessed on April 30th 2017
http://www.promise.com/articles/other-types-of-addiction/social-media-affects-the-brain-
like-a-drug/amp/ accessed on April 29th 2017
Infographis of Asosiasi Penyelenggara Jasa Internet Indonesia (APJII)’s survey. “Komposisi
Pengguna Internet Indonesia” http://apjii.or.id accessed on April 16th 2017
My short-term (almost 2 weeks) survey of Instagram influence on Jakarta Middle and High
schoolar (almost 100 respondents)