Instagram Breeds Young Insta-Targets

Some of my older readers may not have heard of “Instagram” before. Instagram (IG) is an application that can be added to most of today’s more modern smart phones which allows people to share photos. These can be photos that were taken with the camera in the phone or any image that has been uploaded to the phone.

I myself have IG on my iPhone. I like the ability to share photos with friends on Twitter and Facebook as well as within the IG photo stream. My “Followers” or people who subscribe to view any photos I choose to share will see my snapshots when they use the IG application. Some people use it to share pictures of their kids with family and friends.

Personally, as a bit of a social media junkie, I enjoy using it to share small resolution samples of my nature photography, shots of myself, funny images, news photos and personal events I think my followers might be interested in. In other words, there’s nothing overly exciting and only slightly interesting. Like many of the apps I use on my iPhone, it’s a time waster or toy. It should be noted that IG has a no nudity policy although many young women push that rule as far as possible.

Obviously there’s a bit of a social factor involved as well but regardless of whether I have 3 followers or 3000, I’ll still use it from time to time until I get bored with it. However, for some people, the experience is something completely different. For some it’s about boosting low self-esteem, self-gratification and exposing themselves. That’s not always a bad thing but I’ve seen cases where it goes a bit too far with girls as young as 13 posting images of themselves in revealing clothing and most often, bikini’s.

The first thing I ask myself when I see examples of this is, “Do her parents know she’s doing this?” Many of these teenage girls are attractive and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the reason why they have not just hundreds but thousands of followers. The majority of which are boys and men.

Just for fun I did a quick search and found one 17 year old blonde girl from Florida who has at last count almost 34-thousand followers. While I’m sure she’s a very smart, happy, engaging and attractive young lady, it’s safe to assume she’s been doing this for at least a year or two and has been collecting admirers for some time. A quick glance at her photos and the overwhelming majority of them show her wearing either revealing bikinis, sports bras and tight clothing to show off her ample breasts and healthy build.

Does she have low self-esteem and is compensating by posting scantily clad images of herself in an effort to have others post comments and “Like” her images as a way to boost her self-worth? Only she knows this for sure but you can bet the thousands of horny boys and men who eagerly await her next images don’t care either way. And in this world of anonymity or detachment from reality, many people can be quite cruel in their comments. It’s easy to bully or belittle someone in today’s world when you’re hundreds or thousands of kilometres away.

A scan of some of the commentary left on her photos range from very positive reinforcement about how she looks to crass remarks about her breasts and even very negative and downright mean comments. Trust me; this is only one example of a plethora of young women posting similar images. If a woman is 18 or older and wants to engage in these activities, that is their right to do so but the same issues apply, only a parent might have less say in the matter once they become legal adults.

While posting images of her in revealing attire might increase her followers and comment numbers it can significantly decrease her safety and anonymity. Aside from the titillation of viewing these images, a deviant can gather information that may increase the odds of escalating his infatuation further than simple voyeurism. Any details on where she lives over time will help him track her down should he wish to do so.

Let’s not forget about Geo-tagging either. What is that you may wonder? Geo-tagging is very common today with a lot of phone apps. Every phone has a built in GPS which can tell you where you are when used with a mapping application. An app such as Find Friends allows you to track the mobile phone of your friend or family member in real-time provided their phones are on and Location Services are enabled. My brother and I use it for fun and I can see where he is within just a few metres. Often times I’ll find him at a restaurant like McDonald’s and I’ll send him a text message asking him “how are the fries today?” Or he could track me as I’m making my way around the golf course and figure out what hole on. It’s interesting but harmless fun.

With IG it works in a similar fashion only instead of real-time tracking, it takes a snap shot of where you are when you take and post the photo. So if you do this enough times in the same area, a criminal can have a pretty good idea where to go to improve his odds of locating you. If you always post photos from a particular beach every Saturday, then all he needs to do is stake out that beach and wait for you to show up. Scary stuff when you think of it like that.

I guess my reason for even writing about this comes from being a mature adult who is tired of seeing young women and girls preyed upon by sick, perverted, psycho pedophile bastards. Some recent Canadian court cases really pissed me off when you hear the details about how some of these creeps operate and will likely use something like Instagram as a place to get off or heaven forbid, search for their next victim. Now I realize that not every man is going to look at images like these and act on any urges they have. The same can be said that not every parent can know what their child is up to at all times but if my broaching the subject results in one parent stopping their daughter from doing this and decrease their risk of harm, it was worth the effort.