Instagram is no longer just a social app — it’s a slot machine in your pocket. And for millions of young people, it’s shaping their sense of self in ways that are both addictive and corrosive.
Increasingly described as the junk food of the digital world, Instagram offers instant hits of attention and validation but delivers little substance — and often leaves users worse off. Behind its polished filters and curated images lies a system engineered for compulsion, comparison, and control.
A Generation Rewired
In his 2024 book The Anxious Generation, psychologist Jonathan Haidt identifies a seismic shift in childhood around 2010 — the moment when smartphones and social media became the dominant environment of adolescent life. He argues that childhood has been “rewired,” moving from one based on play, face-to-face interaction, and exploration, to one dominated by screens, curated images, and digital surveillance.
This “great rewiring,” as Haidt calls it, correlates directly with the surge in anxiety, depression, and self-harm seen in teens over the last decade. And platforms like Instagram are at the centre of this transformation — not by accident, but by design.
Built Like a Casino
At the heart of Instagram’s addictive power lies a principle borrowed from gambling: variable reinforcement. Each swipe or refresh brings the possibility of a like, comment, or notification — but not always. That randomness, just like a slot machine, keeps users coming back.
This isn’t a harmless quirk. It’s a core strategy. The unpredictability of social rewards — combined with constant notifications and infinite scrolling — hijacks the brain’s reward system, especially in teenagers, who are more susceptible to dopamine-driven habits. Haidt likens this to digital heroin — something that offers intense but short-lived highs, while degrading attention, sleep, and self-control.
Shattering Self-Esteem
Instagram’s visual culture — curated perfection, filtered faces, idealised bodies — has become a distortion mirror for young users, particularly girls. Haidt’s research, backed by leaked internal studies from Meta, confirms that Instagram amplifies body image issues and comparison anxiety.
One statistic stands out: Instagram worsens body image issues for 1 in 3 teen girls, a fact known internally to Meta, but unaddressed. The platform’s algorithmic emphasis on appearance-based content means that insecurities are not just triggered — they’re monetised.
Young people aren’t just scrolling through photos. They’re subconsciously measuring their worth against impossible standards, dozens of times a day.
Overstimulated and Undernourished
As with junk food, overconsumption is easy and even encouraged. Instagram’s design makes it effortless to spend hours engaging with content that provides no intellectual or emotional nourishment. Users often report feeling more anxious, more tired, and less fulfilled after use — yet they return the next day.
According to Haidt, this constant exposure to fragmented attention, disrupted sleep, social comparison, and digital overload forms the four foundational harms now facing the post-2010 generation. It’s not one aspect of social media that causes harm — it’s the cumulative environment young people are growing up in.
A Role for Educators
Schools and educators are uniquely positioned to respond. Increasingly, teachers are framing apps like Instagram in terms of digital nutrition — asking students to evaluate their “media diet” the way they’d think about food: What’s healthy? What’s junk? What’s addictive?
In classrooms across the UK and beyond, students are engaging in:
- “Media Food Pyramid” activities, ranking content from nourishing to toxic.
- Digital Diet Diaries, recording time spent and how it made them feel.
- Critical projects that deconstruct Instagram’s manipulation mechanics, comparing them directly to gambling and junk food advertising.
Haidt recommends schools go further — implementing complete bans on smartphones during the school day, and doubling down on unstructured outdoor play and in-person social development, which he sees as crucial countermeasures to the harms of digital immersion.
Time for a Hard Reset
Instagram isn’t just a platform — it’s a product optimised for addiction, engineered to capture attention and exploit insecurities. It’s fast food for the mind, wrapped in shiny filters and rewards.
The evidence is now overwhelming: social media — and Instagram in particular — is a major driver of the adolescent mental health crisis. We wouldn’t let teenagers live off sweets and soft drinks. Why are we letting them scroll endlessly through digital sugar?
It’s time to call this what it is: a public health issue, not just a tech trend.
As Haidt writes: “If we want to raise a less anxious generation, we need to let kids be kids in the real world again — and take the slot machines out of their hands.”
