Home > Business > Industry

Instagram is flooded with burned out Korean workers

Published: 05 Dec. 2024, 16:38 Updated: 05 Dec. 2024, 19:51

CHO YONG-JUN
[email protected]

Chong Da-jeong, Meta's head of Instagram communications for the country speaks during Wednesday’s Instagram Trend Talk at the Meta Korea's headquarters in Gangnam District southern Seoul. [CHO YONG-JUN]

Workers of all ages experience burnout, but none quite like Korea's Gen Z — who flooded the platform with an unusually high amount of work-related stress this year, Instagram said Wednesday.

A defining trend of 2024, Meta Korea says, was the emergence of “anti-burnout” — which Chong Da-jeong, Meta's head of Instagram communications for the country, helpfully defined as “the action of actively trying to break away from being burned out” at the company's Trend Talk at its headquarters in Gangnam District, southern Seoul — among Korean teens and 20-somethings on the platform.

For example, Gen Zs stimulate themselves by being active to combat extreme physical and mental tiredness caused by chronic workplace stress — for which Korea is infamous. “You can see many runners around the Han River parks, [and] many have been recruiting their running crews on Instagram,” Chong said, adding that globally, cold plunge — immersing yourself in cold water for a short period of time, also trended on the social media platform.

In contrast, Instagram said many others were relieving stress with more static measures, like meditation, calligraphy and reading more — whether that be reading books or using Meta's new text-based social media platform Threads

While the company did not reveal country-specific numbers, Meta Korea said Threads currently has 275 million monthly active users, with 63 percent of the content being only text-based threads.

The report follows Instagram's decision to double its maximum uploaded photo count from 10 to 20 back in August, which incentivizes users to post more of their B-cut photos that they otherwise would've left out.

“Instead of perfectly directed photos […] posts with no filters, posting those stories into Instagram stories, are trending in Korea,” Chong said.

Concluding the event, Instagram addressed public concerns about its privacy policies related to young people’s use. Reports emerged in early November that Instagram accounts that mainly contain photos of children were turned private or locked by Instagram.

“We have a fundamental community guideline that we have to adhere to, [and] only people above 14 years old can make an account on Instagram,” Chong said, adding that accounts including pictures of children under 14 are “required” to “state that a parent or a management company is operating the account on their behalf."

“Instagram uses AI to [detect] such accounts but we also have human staff, so when you explain your position to us, we will reactivate the account if it adheres to our standards,” Chong said, repeating the company's previous official statement in November.

The account of lovtaeha, a family-oriented account run by a mother boasting 933,000 followers, notably, was restored after being deactivated by Instagram last month.

“But do please understand that it may take some time, as we have a lot of users.”

BY CHO YONG-JUN [[email protected]]