Unga vuxnas attityder gentemot Instagrams algoritm och funktioner

Sammanfattning: A well digitalized world has contributed, in many ways, to a simpler and more communicative everyday life among people, both privately and through work. However, this societal structure of constantly being connected and active on social media has not only had a positive impact on people and their everyday lives. As the cues for appointments within healthcare, hospitals and psychiatric wards are increasing and the number of mental illnesses drastically increases, many studies have investigated the connection between social media and mental illness. Based on previous knowledge, the purpose of this study is to investigate how users' attitudes towards Instagram's algorithms and functions relate to the use of the application, and if there’re technical measures that could promote the users' experience on the platform and work to counteract the beauty obsession on social media, mainly in this study, Instagram. There is a clear pattern around social media and self-achievement, where the individual strives to gain interactions and affirmation on these various platforms. There is also a technical aspect where the apps' algorithm triggers a dependency on the users to continue scrolling as well as notifications that ring, which also makes it more difficult to completely disconnect from the application. In order to carry out the study and answer the question, a quantitative survey and qualitative interviews were conducted with influencers active in the social media industry, as well as the study's target group: young adults. The result of the study shows that the attitude the users have created towards the platform Instagram is that it comes with feelings of self-criticism and body dissatisfaction to a certain extent. There is also a pronounced dependence on the application, which further creates a feeling of inadequacy in the users.