Their study showed presence of depressive symptoms in a user could positively predict they would post. Khodarahimi & Fathi 2017 found evidence users displayed higher levels of depressive and anxious symptoms compared to non-users. 13% of British and 6% of American teenager users with suicidal thoughts could trace them to Instagram use.
- The addition was seen by some in the technology media as Facebook’s attempt at competing with the then-popular video-sharing application Vine.
- The move was seen as a way to prevent users from deleting photos that don’t garner a desired number of “likes” or are deemed boring, but also as a way to limit the “emergent behavior” of deleting photos, which deprives the service of content.
- According to the IFJ, Instagram is popular among Iranians because it is seen as an outlet for freedom and a “window to the world”.Still, Iran has sentenced citizens to prison for posts made on their Instagram accounts.
- In August 2023, Instagram introduced new adjustments to protect user privacy and prevent harassment and spam.
- Instagram has since been accused of extending the practice to censor posts under vague and inconsistent circumstances, particularly in regards to sexually suggestive material.
- One exception was in January 2020, when Instagram and its parent company, Facebook, Inc., removed posts “that voice support for slain Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani to comply with US sanctions”.
Google – More ways to search
In April 2016, Instagram added a “Videos You Might Like” channel to the tab, followed by an “Events” channel in August, featuring videos from concerts, sports games, and other live events, followed by the addition of Instagram Stories in October. The tab was updated in June 2015 to feature trending tags and places, curated content, and the ability to search for locations. Instagram said that this is to prevent abuse and so that hashtags do not help users gain views, but it has been noted that using hashtags is the only free method for a user to reach past their existing followers. In 2022 this was again tested on some users, and in April 2023 the ability to search recent hashtags was removed entirely.
- In August, Instagram announced that it would start organizing comments into threads, letting users more easily interact with replies.
- This study identified seven motivations behind Reels usage; socially rewarding self-promotion, entertainment, escape, surveillance, novelty, documentation, and trendiness.
- During Facebook F8, it was announced that Instagram would, beginning in Canada, pilot the removal of publicly displayed “like” counts for content posted by other users.
- In September 2024, Meta paid out a $101 million fine for storing up to 600 million passwords of Instagram and Facebook users in plain text.
- After a period of testing, a duration of up to three minutes was announced in January 2025.
- In July, Instagram started allowing users to respond to Stories content by sending photos and videos, complete with Instagram effects such as filters, stickers, and hashtags.
App support
The second recruited 10 monthly users for a 5-day diary study, where they recorded their online habits. Instagram has since been accused of extending the practice to censor posts under vague and inconsistent circumstances, particularly in regards to sexually suggestive material. In a now-deleted Facebook post, Instagram wrote that “When developing content, we recommend focusing on your business objective or goal rather than hashtags”.
Follow along
In June 2021, Instagram launched a native affiliate marketing tool creators can use to earn commissions based on sales. In April 2019, Instagram added the option to “Checkout on Instagram”, which allows merchants to sell products directly through the Instagram app. In February 2016, Instagram announced that it had 200,000 advertisers on the platform. In June 2014, Instagram announced the rollout of ads in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, with ads starting to roll out that autumn.
They are distinguished from regular content by the “sponsored” tag under the account name. Then in August of that year, Instagram introduced a reels button on the home page. Then, the following month, Reels officially launched in 50 countries including the United States, Canada and United Kingdom. Instagram Reels was officially launched in Pakistan in August 2022, two years after its global rollout in August 2020. Instagram Reels is the short-form section of the American social media platform Instagram. In May 2017, Instagram once again updated the Explore tab to promote public Stories content from nearby places.
About this app
A comparison of users with non-users showed boys with an account differ from boys without in terms of over-evaluation of their shape and weight, skipping meals, and levels of reported disordered eating cognitions. A 2021 study by Büttner & Rudertb showed that not being tagged in an Instagram photo triggers the feeling of social exclusion and ostracism, especially for those with higher needs to belong. Mackson et al. 2019 found users were less lonely than non-users and Instagram membership predicts lower self-reported loneliness.
On July 5th, 2023, Meta launched Threads, a social network platform connected to Instagram that allows users to make public shortform blog posts comprising text, photos, and videos, as well as to converse with other users and reblog other users’ posts. In response to abusive and negative comments on users’ photos, Instagram has made efforts to give users more control over their posts and accompanying comments field. Stories are more authentic than typical photos posted as posts because users know that in 24 hours their Stories will disappear if they don’t add them as highlighted (however users can check who saw their Story for 48 hours after it was published).
Version 21.04.2
Correlations have been made between Instagram content and dissatisfaction with one’s body, as a result of people comparing themselves to other users. One exception was in January 2020, when Instagram and its parent company, Facebook, Inc., removed posts “that voice support for slain Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani to comply with US sanctions”. A few days after a fire incident that happened in the Koryo Hotel in North Korea on June 11, 2015, authorities blocked Instagram to prevent photos of the incident from being spread. According to the IFJ, Instagram is popular among Iranians because it is seen as an outlet for freedom and a “window to the world”.Still, Iran has sentenced citizens to prison for posts made on their Instagram accounts. Like many social media sites, Instagram employs a combination of automated algorithms, user reports and human review to identify and remove illegal content such as child abuse and encouragement of terrorism. In contrast, the level of agreement expressed in creating Instagram posts was lower, which demonstrates that Instagram’s emphasis on visual communication is widely accepted by young people in social communication.
In April 2016, Instagram released a Windows 10 Mobile app, after years of demand from Microsoft and the public to release an app for the platform. Since the app’s launch it had used the Foursquare API technology to provide named location tagging. Britain’s Office of Fair Trading approved the deal on August 14, 2012, and on August 22, 2012, the Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. closed its investigation, allowing the deal to proceed. On April 9, 2012, Facebook, Inc. (now Meta Platforms) bought Instagram for $1 billion (equivalent to $1,346,000,000 in 2024) in cash and stock, with a plan to keep the company independently managed. On April 3, 2012, Instagram released a version of its app for Android phones, and it was downloaded more than one million times in less than one day.
YouTube
A camera inside Direct lets users take a photo and send it to the recipient without leaving the conversation. The feature received a major update in September 2015, adding conversation threading and making it possible for users to share locations, hashtag pages, and profiles through private messages directly from the news feed. These researchers found that college students in the U.S. and China watch short-form videos for entertainment, knowledge, and to build social identities. A Meta spokesperson explained, “We have fixed an error that caused some users to see content in their Instagram Reels feed that should not have been recommended. We apologize for the mistake.” Despite the “TikTokification” of Reels and the parent company Meta spending millions on courting content creators, user engagement continued to lag way behind TikTok as of 2022. Users can also view statistics on https://www.cuscocasinoonline.nl/ their videos and see other user’s videos that are trending in the Inspiration tab.

