Instagram is free to use, and it works as a shopfront: Mark Zuckerberg told investors in January 2026 that “many, many millions of businesses” rely on Meta’s platforms.
The asterisk has three parts. A 2019 slide by Facebook’s own researchers, reported in 2021, read “We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls”, meaning girls who already had those issues. Instagram describes itself as a place for friends, and a US court found in 2025 that 7% of Americans’ time on it goes on content from friends. That time is recorded, and Meta uses what it records to personalise the feed and the ads.
Instagram sits inside Meta, which was 2.41% of the S&P 500 on 2 October 2026. Anyone holding an S&P 500 index fund, directly or through super, owns a slice of it.
the company
Instagram is owned by Meta Platforms, Inc., of Menlo Park, California. Facebook, as the company was then called, agreed to buy it in April 2012 for approximately US$1 billion in cash and shares, when TechCrunch put it at 27 million registered users on iOS alone. In September 2025 Mark Zuckerberg said it had 3 billion monthly active users.
Meta does not report Instagram’s results on their own. It reported US$200.97 billion in revenue for 2025, US$196.18 billion of it from advertising. The research firm Emarketer forecast in December 2024 that Instagram would bring in 50.3% of Meta’s US ad revenue in 2025.
the good stuff
Instagram works as a shopfront. Meta’s annual report describes it as a place to “discover and shop from their favorite businesses”, and Mark Zuckerberg told investors in January 2026 that “many, many millions of businesses” use and rely on Meta’s platforms.
One of Meta’s critics has said as much. When Facebook went offline for more than five hours in October 2021, the whistleblower Frances Haugen told a US Senate hearing the next day that “millions of small businesses weren’t able to reach potential customers”.
Goldman Sachs Research put the creator economy as a whole at about US$250 billion in April 2023.
hold on to this one
the part worth keeping in mind
A shop reaches new customers on Instagram when the app shows its posts or ads to people outside its followers. How the app chooses what to show is set out further down.
the internal research
On 14 September 2021 the Wall Street Journal ran “Facebook Knows Instagram Is Toxic for Teen Girls, Company Documents Show”. The documents came from Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager who identified herself on 60 Minutes that October. Later that month Facebook took the name Meta.
The Journal quoted a slide from 2019: “We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls”. It reported that the research had been “reviewed by top Facebook executives, and was cited in a 2020 presentation given to Mr. Zuckerberg”.
On 29 September 2021 Facebook released the deck itself, with its own notes on each slide. It was shared internally in November 2019, and slide 14 is headed, in capitals, “But, we make body image issues worse for 1 in 3 teen girls”. Its chart covers teen girls who said they already had body image issues: 32.4% said Instagram made them worse, 45.5% said it had no impact and 22.1% said it made them better.
Facebook’s head of research wrote that this was “not one in three of all teenage girls”, and that on 11 of the slide’s 12 issues more girls said Instagram made things better than worse. Facebook’s notes add that fewer than 150 teen girls answered the body image questions, and that the research “did not measure causal relationships between Instagram and real-world issues”.
A second deck, from October 2019, has a slide headed “Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rates of anxiety and depression among teens”. Facebook’s note says it rests on discussions with 40 teenagers. The Journal also reported that 13% of British and 6% of American teens with suicidal thoughts traced them to Instagram, which Facebook’s note puts at about 1% of everyone surveyed, or 16 respondents.
If any of this is close to home, Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and Kids Helpline is on 1800 55 1800, any time.
On social comparison, Haugen told a US Senate subcommittee on 5 October 2021: “Facebook’s own research says Instagram is actually distinctly worse than, say, TikTok or Snapchat or Reddit”.
The American Psychological Association’s health advisory of May 2023 starts from the position that “Using social media is not inherently beneficial or harmful to young people”. Its report of April 2024 calls infinite scroll “particularly risky for youth”.
In September 2024 Meta introduced Instagram Teen Accounts, which put teenagers into stricter settings by default.
how the feed is ranked
Instagram calls itself the place “Where everyday moments bring friends together”. Adam Mosseri, who runs it, has written that it began in 2010 as “a single stream of photos in chronological order” and moved to a ranked feed once people were missing 70% of the posts in theirs.
Instagram’s ranking explainer says there is no single algorithm. In the main feed the predictions it looks at most closely are “how likely you are to spend a few seconds on a post, comment on it, like it, share it, and tap on the profile photo”, and in Reels “how likely you are to reshare a reel, watch a reel all the way through, like it, and go to the audio page”. Time spent watching is on both lists, beside likes and shares. A Following view shows posts in chronological order instead.
In November 2025, in the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust case against Meta, Judge James Boasberg wrote, citing Meta’s exhibits from January 2025: “Americans now spend only 17% of their time on Facebook viewing content from their friends”. On Instagram “that number is 7%”. What replaced friends’ content, he wrote, was mostly “short videos posted by strangers and recommended by AI”. He added that “connecting with friends remains an important part of both apps”, and ruled for Meta.
Meta’s chief financial officer, Susan Li, told investors in January 2026 that revenue depends on “our ability to deliver engaging experiences for our community, and our effectiveness at monetizing that engagement over time”, and that watch time on Instagram Reels in the US was up more than 30% in a year.
DataReportal’s Digital 2026 report, using Similarweb data for August 2025, put the average at 1 hour and 13 minutes a day for people using Instagram’s Android app.
the data and the ads
The time is recorded. Meta’s privacy policy, which covers Instagram, lists the “time, frequency and duration of your activities on our Products” among what it collects, with the content you view, purchases, uploaded contacts, device identifiers, GPS location where allowed, and websites you visit, through tools such as the Meta pixel. It says the information is used to personalise your feed and ads.
Meta reports what that earns as average revenue per person: the revenue of its apps divided by the people using at least one of them each day. Its four quarterly figures for 2025 add up to US$57.03, against US$49.63 in 2024. That is worldwide, across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp. Meta gives no figure for Instagram alone.
In September 2022 Ireland’s Data Protection Commission fined Meta Platforms Ireland €405 million over Instagram’s handling of children’s data: accounts public by default, and business accounts that showed children’s email addresses or phone numbers. Meta said the settings were old and already changed, disputed how the fine was calculated, and said it would appeal.
the environmental footprint
Meta reports its footprint for the whole company. Its environmental data for 2024 puts emissions at 8.2 million tonnes of CO2e once its renewable energy contracts are counted, and 15.6 million tonnes on the location-based measure, which leaves them out. It used 18.4 terawatt-hours of electricity, up from 15.3 in 2023, and withdrew 5,637 megalitres of water, about 5.6 billion litres.
Meta says it has matched all of its electricity use with renewable energy every year since 2020, and that it aims for net zero emissions across its value chain and to be water positive in 2030.
Instagram’s own share of that footprint is not disclosed, so any figure for Instagram alone would be an estimate.
what this means for your money
Meta is one of the ten largest holdings in the S&P 500. On 2 October 2026 it was 2.41% of the index, on the figures State Street lists for its S&P 500 fund. For every $10,000 in a fund tracking the index, about $241 was in Meta that day.
An index fund holds every company in the index, so weighing the useful part against the asterisk is left to you. How the index ends up in super is covered in s&p 500* the index and super funds* the default.
inaam holds itself to the same reading. Every company in the fund is named in the app, with the reason it got in and the trade-off written next to it. The three checks a company has to pass are set out on how it works, and the five themes members customise for themselves are on investment areas. The subscription is $10 a month, which is $120 a year, and it is separate from the money you invest. The minimum to invest in the fund is $100. Sign-up happens in the app, not on this website. SMSFs and family trusts are welcome.
key sources
Wall Street Journal · the same article in a US House hearing record · Facebook’s annotated research deck · FTC v. Meta, US District Court · Instagram ranking explainer · Meta 2025 results · Meta environmental data · Irish Data Protection Commission
General information only. It does not take your objectives or circumstances into account. Consider the PDS and TMD, and we recommend independent advice, before investing. This article is general information only and does not constitute financial advice. Readers should do their own research before making investment decisions. The inaam Impact Investments Fund is ARSN 691 614 132. inaam is not affiliated with Meta Platforms, Inc., Instagram or any entity discussed in this report.
