The Week in Social: Story, advertising and album makeovers (among other things)

Instagram and Snapchat taking their toll on young people’s mental health

If you’ve ever gone to bed at 11pm and still been up at 2:30am, 108 weeks deep in your ex’s new partner’s best friend’s work colleague’s Instagram page (or other such scenarios), you might not be surprised to discover that Instagram and Snapchat have been found to have the most negative impact on young people’s mental health.

The #StatusOfMind survey conducted by the UK’s Royal Society for Public Heath (RSPH) and Young Health Movement (YHM) questioned 1,500 people aged 14 – 24, finding YouTube to be the most positive platform, followed by Twitter and Facebook, with Snapchat and Instagram rolling in last to share the wooden spoon. RSPH Chief Executive Shirley Cramer said of the findings: “Both platforms are very image focused, and it appears they may be driving feelings of inadequacy and anxiety in young people.”

Instagram and Messenger get to know each other a little better

Instagram’s parent company, Facebook recently rolled out click to Messenger ads on Instagram to complement the feature-of-the-same-name already on Facebook. This means users can reach people and businesses they care about on Instagram and engage instantly with them through Messenger. Within the image, video or carousel ad, there is an option to (as the name suggests) click through to Messenger where you can chat directly with the advertiser. Now go forth and connect!

Facebook is upping its album game

Facebook is now letting users add any post to albums, not just photos. If that sentence made little sense to you and you had to read it a couple of times, you are not alone. Basically, the social giant is now allowing its peeps to create an album (let’s say it’s for a trip to Bali) and within that album you can include check-ins, status updates, videos and (of course) photos. So when you’re digging for your memories for a spot of reminiscing, you can easily find them all together in one place without having to venture into the depths of your timeline. Thanks Facebook!

The Skype app gets a more social makeover

After working on a redesign for the past year, Skype recently launched a gussied up version of its Skype application, with a new set of features that take cues from platforms like Snapchat, Messenger and Instagram. Its brand-new Stories-like feature is called Highlights and its redesign puts the camera just a swipe away from users’ chats, among other things.

Instagram celebrates Pride Month with new LGBTQ stickers

If you’ve recently noticed your Instagram Stories have taken a turn for the rainbow, you are not alone. Helping ensure that Pride Month stays as colorful as ever, Instagram recently announced a new set of stickers and a rainbow brush for Instagram Stories. LGBTQ artists from around the world designed the six stickers, each showing different portions of queer culture and life.

The platform is even going beyond the invisible walls of its app, transforming literal walls in LA, London, Madrid, Nashville and Cleveland into works of rainbow art – providing the perfect backdrop for pride-fueled photos!

YouTube advertising takes a strict turn for the kinder

Following backlash around brand advertising on controversial content, YouTube is taking steps to clean up the videos within its ad network. The community has spoken, and Ariel Bardin, YouTube VP of product management has answered: “We’ve heard loud and clear from the creator community and from advertisers that YouTube needs to broaden our advertiser-friendly guidelines around a few additional types of content.”

The video site will now not show “hateful” advertising content, which is anything that “promotes discrimination or disparages or humiliates an individual or group of people.” Though the videos that do fall into this category will be allowed to exist on the site, no money will be able to be made from them.