During an appearance on Live With Kelly and Ryan last week, Selena Gomez said that she'd deleted the Instagram app from her phone because she didn't like the effect it was having on her mental health. As the third-most-followed account on the platform, it was big news for her fans and the app itself. Elle reports that Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, told BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat that he's hoping to have a conversation with her and wants everyone that uses the social media platform to know that they're not getting the same experience as Gomez.
Gomez explained that she didn't abandon IG entirely. Instead, she just deleted the app from her phone and uses it on someone else's device. That way, she isn't dwelling on comments and haters and limits her time on IG. She just uses it when she wants to share an image with her followers (all 152 million of them) and then disconnects. She added that a lot of young people on the platform probably feel the same way as she does, letting some of the negativity get to them more than it should.
"I used to a lot [go online on Instagram and engage with my followers], but I think it's just become really unhealthy for young people, including myself, to spend a lot of time fixating on all these comments and letting this stuff in, and it was affecting me," Gomez explained. "It would make me depressed. It would make me feel not good about myself and look at my body differently and all kinds of stuff, so I actually don't have it on my phone. I have it on someone else's phone and when I feel like I want to share something with my fans or mess around with it, I do it then."
Mosseri said that he's "disappointed" to hear that Gomez deleted the app, but he noted that for non-famous users, the experience is completely different.
"I wouldn’t extend Selena Gomez’s experience on the platform to what your experience or my experience might be like," Mosseri said. "She has over 100 million followers; it’s a whole other world."
He acknowledged that there's room for improvement on the platform and said that he doesn't want anyone getting depressed when they use Instagram, famous or not. He said that there's absolutely no way to keep users from saying "mean or nasty things" and that there has to be a balance in order for users to get what they want out of it. He added that he'd love to have a discussion with Gomez and that he appreciates any and all criticism, since it only makes everything better for everyone.
"We need to make sure that creators like her are getting value out of the platform, that they don't get depressed by the platform. We like the criticism, we like to have the conversation," Mosseri said.
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