"...Instagram is one of the most toxic internet substances out there are the moment..."

Social is the weapons-grade plutonium of online design; you can use it as part of a stable fuel source, or as the components of a weapon, but it's most likely to end up carelessly scattered around your community poisoning it for generations to come.

In Instagram's case, its social enablement is relatively anodyne, but it illustrates some common problems: comments are higher-bandwidth than content, and comments are easier to create than content. Thus, low-value information is added to the system at a much higher rate than high-value content. Solving this is, to put it mildly, not easy.

> Social is the weapons-grade plutonium of online design; you can use it as part of a stable fuel source, or as the components of a weapon, but it's most likely to end up carelessly scattered around your community poisoning it for generations to come.

That right there is sheer genius, ladies & gentlemen!

It's interesting to compare sites with healthy social components (e.g. HN & reddit), to those whose social component has died off (e.g. /.), to those which use it unhealthily, if profitably (Instagram?).

I would not identify Reddit as having a healthy social component. Everything that has been said here about Instagram is also largely true of Reddit, and then you can add in the Neo-nazis, fatpeoplehaters and so on on top of that.

So let me ask a provacative question.

What makes a social component healthy/unhealthy? I generally found myself nodding to posts until I read yours, which made me think quite a bit harder. Can a community with questionable moral value (neo nazis) have a healthy social community? I certainly think those two are not mutually exclusive, and to tie them together may detract from a complete understanding of what "unhealthy" means.

(To answer the question myself, "healthy" vs "unhealthy" in my eyes is whether the community is a self perpetuating echo chamber, (for which many parts of instagram this certainly holds true, content regurgitation and mindless browsing, but I'm apt to believe not ALL of it) and similarly an ISIS forum may have more of a tendancy towards "unhealthy" social content, I don't believe it necessarily dictates it; I've read some fascinating discussions even on HN (linked to other sites) between extremist Muslim/European religious experts that would be a fit for the most cultured discussion boards, even if context of one sides subject matter is far darker.)

I don't use Instagram, but I understand that you go there with your real life persona, but the usual reddit handle is a quite unidentifiable nick?

And subreddits are different. I really don't see much connection between Instagram and /r/polandball

That depends on the sub. Many are quality groups. Most that have very large subscriber bases like the default subs are not.

I have created a mostly anonymous Instagram account, and I love it. Gives me somewhere to post all the photos I'd feel like a cock posting on Facebook. I am "friends" with some truly random people and we comment on each others' photos: some random 50-year-old Nigerian guy living in Atlanta who loves getting table service at clubs and natty shoes; a single mother (I assume) in Brazil; a whole bunch of other luxury travel lovers.

That's a bit strong. I love sharing photos with friends and family, and Instagram makes these super easy to do, and quickly, and with easy ways to get comments from those I'm interested in.

Instagram itself is not the problem. How teenagers are using social media is a behavior or perspective issue in my opinion, not a problem with an actual product that just offers a nice tool. Growing up before the internet, these attitudes were in effect, just exposed differently. Honestly I think it is a cultural problem, because there are other places in the world where this obsession with acceptance does not exist, and where everything is not driven by ego or lack thereof.

Flickr never caused the problems Instagram does, and maybe the narcissism and neurotic behavior Insta encourages is purely accidental but it is what is is, which is a pretty nasty invention I'm not so comfortable dismissing.

Flickr also never really had teenage users.

I'm pretty sure that these behaviors just come from being a teenager and aren't caused by any specific technology.

And even more specifically, I do believe the problems stem most from American teenage behavior, because while kids are kids the world around, American culture does have a much higher degree of judgemental behavior. I'm an American and my eyes were opened to how different it really is in the U.S. compared to other countries when I moved abroad several years ago.

Having traveled pretty extensively, I think judgement comes in different forms with different cultures but it's definitely not an exclusively American phenomenon. In fact, I don't think Americans hold a candle to the Hong Kongese.

I use Instagram to share some of my photography experiments, and to discover new photographers; along with Twitter, it is my favorite social network. I don't think your point is well argued.

Sure it can be used artistically but overall I'd say it represents one of the more ugly facets of modern life.

It's become the mosquito of the Internet, possibly useful in some mysterious way but if I had to choose a species to exterminate it'd probably be that one.

Instagram would not be 1/10th as popular as it is if it was only "possibly useful in some mysterious way". If you don't like it then don't use it, but it clearly has a use for many many people. We shouldn't get rid of a tool 300 million people voluntarily choose to use just because you're upsets at the way some american teenagers use it.