Serious concerns have been raised about the effect of social media on teenagers' mental well-being. Meta is letting a group of researchers examine some of Instagram's data to determine if social media is psychologically damaging younger users. The Verge reported that the Center for Open Science (COS) is launching a new joint pilot program with Meta to produce independent studies about how social media affects teenagers' mental health. The Instagram Data Access Pilot for Well-Being Research program will conduct "independent academic" research using up to six months of Instagram data to determine the "potential positive or negative associations of Instagram use" among teens and young adults. The study will also examine the positive and negative differences of large populations across the world and the causes of "statistical relationships between Instagram and social or emotional health," according to the program's website.

In the 10 days leading up to Christmas this year, I searched on Instagram for three of my exes, an acquaintance I met on a trip to Cuba four years ago, an account dedicated to astrology memes, a past roommate, my own dog's account (@lucythetherapypup), my best friend's sweater-wearing poodle, a famous Pomeranian who lives in New York, a bird named Parfait I recently met at a San Francisco market, 10 contestants of the reality TV show Love Island, and the hashtag #wienerdog. I know all of this because Instagram told me. That's because this month, I submitted a data request under California's new privacy law to see just how much information the company has on me. What I got was a wide-ranging look at how my life has changed in the last 10 years since I first logged on to Instagram, and a window into what the company is willing to share about what it knows about me. Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, I have the right to demand companies disclose "any personal information" they collect about me and request a copy of that information.

Social media has become increasingly important for communication among young people. It is also often used to communicate suicidal ideation. To investigate the link between acute suicidality and language use as well as activity on Instagram. A total of 52 participants, aged on average around 16 years, who had posted pictures of non-suicidal self-injury on Instagram, and reported a lifetime history of suicidal ideation, were interviewed using Instagram messenger. Of those participants, 45.5% reported suicidal ideation on the day of the interview (acute suicidal ideation). Quantitative text analysis of language use in the interviews and directly on Instagram (in picture captions) was performed using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software. Language markers in the interviews and in picture captions, as well as activity on Instagram were added to regression analyses, in order to investigate predictors for current suicidal ideation. Most participants (80%) had come across expressions of active suicidal thoughts on Instagram and 25% had expressed active suicidal thoughts themselves.

Until recently, many of the social media privacy concerns that seem to swirl around Facebook on a regular basis never seemed to extend to Instagram, which is owned by Facebook. But all that could be changing as the result of a recent Instagram data scraping case that is attracting a lot of attention from privacy and security experts. A trusted Facebook marketing partner, HYP3R, had been scraping data from Instagram, storing it on its own servers, and then re-packaging all of that social media data for advertisers. The Instagram data scraping in question included physical locations, bio information, and photos – as well as some content (such as Instagram Stories) that were specifically intended to disappear after 24 hours. As might be imagined, Instagram is facing a firestorm of controversy over this HYP3R Instagram data scraping case.

Here's a point that's difficult to argue: Bacon is delicious. The fatty pig product is a favorite food for breakfast or otherwise among many (looking at you, hipsters). Housewares retailer Ginny's recently released an interactive map dubbed the "50 States of Bacon," which uses Instagram data to show which states enjoy bacon the most – and least. According to the map, based in part on an analysis of more than 33,000 Instagram photos in the U.S. featuring the tag #bacon, Hawaii loves it the least, while Nebraskans are the most bacon-obsessed. See your state's amount of bacon love by clicking here.