Using Instagram can increase adolescents’ closeness to friends

Your food, your vacation, your carefully curated lifeā€”all posted for your friends in a filtered image. Some may scoff at adolescents’ use of social media networks as they pine for likes. Is this just frivolous behavior? Or are they really just solidifying their social connections to friends? A recent study by a researcher at the University of Leuven found that adolescents’ use of Instagram actually strengthened the closeness of their friendships.