Hacker News Reader

I find instagram to be, by far, the most damaging to my mental health of all the social networks. The explore feed must be optimized to relentlessly show "all the people I wish I could be but will never be."

View on HN

Instagram was never my favorite, but I could at least get behind the old news feed sorting by "most recent". I recently deleted the app bc of the new sorting algorithm, which I'm not a fan of. At least Facebook gives the option to switch the news feed sorting back to "most recent".

Are you saying that if you were unaware those people existed, your mental health would benefit?

I don't understand. "Ignorance is bliss" surely can't be an antidote to depression.

The point is that it's so easy to fall into the trap of comparing yourself to the artificial lives of professional "influencers" on Instagram who are selling you a lifestyle for their own gain. It isn't so much "ignorance is bliss" so much as realizing the life they sell isn't really real. Even among "non-influencers" everyone is optimizing posts to show the happiest parts of their lives, which is a tiny slice of our reality.

When you're feeling depressed or anxious, being bombarded with a feed of artificially happy people only makes you more depressed or anxious.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com