Impact of Gaming Content

INSIGHTS
The social impact of the Instagram world record egg on mental health involves asking for help if the pressure from the society is too much to bear.
Compared to the Superbowl advertisement slots that are pegged at $5.25 million per slot, the Instagram advertisement space for the world-famous egg is more valuable at an estimated $10 million per advertising space.
Based on the studies done by researchers, the various effects of social media on people's mental health conditions are still not well-proven.

In terms of mental health, the social impact of the Instagram account of @world_record_egg revolves around asking for help in the event that the pressure from the society is too much already. This is to avoid total mental health breakdown and to help in sustaining a good mental health condition. As for the impact on advertising, the Instagram egg was able to make a case that social media advertising is more effective in reaching users and in generating a more valuable ad space (estimated $10 million per slot) as compared to the typical advertising channels like the Superbowl ads slots ($5.25 million per slot).

SOCIAL MEDIA IMPACTS
THE INSTAGRAM VIRAL EGG
In January 2019, an Instagram user going by the handle @world_record_egg added a normal picture of a brown egg on the platform. The aim of the post initially looked to be just a way of getting a record number of "likes." The online community then responded enthusiastically. After posting, the picture of the egg started getting a massive number of likes until it eventually became the most-liked image on the platform with around 52 million likes. Prior to this, Kylie Jenner's birth announcement in 2018 was the most liked picture on Instagram with around 18 million likes.

The person behind the viral picture is Chris Godfrey and the agenda behind the egg post was eventually revealed during Super Bowl Sunday, one year after Kylie posted her birth announcement. During the game-time advertisement on Hulu, the talking egg said, "Recently, I started to crack. The pressure of social media is hurting me." As the egg started to fall apart, the advertisement revealed this message,"If you're struggling too, talk to someone." The ad then faded away after showing the "talkingegg.info" link.

Once users visit the website, they are urged to select from various mental health resources. In the US section, the links to the following mental health support groups are shown: Mental Health America, CALM: Campaign against Living Miserably and NAMI: National Alliance of Mental Illness. Overall, the viral Instagram egg has put the spotlight on mental health awareness to let people know that help is available. The viral ad ended with this message. "We got this."
  
REACTIONS FROM VARIOUS GROUPS
The big reveal received various reactions. The team from Mental Health America agreed with the message of the egg advertisement. They stressed that it is important to address mental illness early on before the condition reaches crisis levels. The group also acknowledges the humor behind the ad since there is a positive spin to it. They have highlighted that even if the egg is in danger of cracking under the spotlight of social media, there is always an option to seek help. They also mentioned that this is also applicable to everyone in order to maintain our mental health.

The viral egg post looks unassuming and has no significant content. However, the way that the messaging for the picture was crafted made the online community decide that the post deserves a big slice of the online attention lottery. The text that was included with the egg simply requested for likes and did not include any reward for those who will respond. The online community felt the absurdity of the request. However, they also felt delighted in being charitable and in doing the right thing by supporting these small accounts instead of those who have large followings already like the members of the Kardashian family.

Based on the response of the egg followers, people are frustrated with the social media attention given to famous personalities like the Kardashians so they wanted to support underdogs like the simple egg. They are thrilled with the novelty of liking something meaningless. This is typical with most internet memes that usually start with the most insignificant thing that suddenly blows up due to the unreasonable attention given to it. A journalist also stated that the popularity of the egg can be likened to an existing viral meme where teenagers in Instagram post the same simple stock pictures on a daily basis. Given the history of viral internet memes such as this, people are seen to always participate in promoting these types of posts. Furthermore, people usually feel a sense of fulfillment when trying to achieve something with groups of people.

However, it is not exactly clear why the egg suddenly became viral even before the mental health message in the Superbowl ad came out. The assessment is that the originator of the egg account may have some knowledge of the key ingredients that can make something viral. In fact, the account owner tagged several popular online sites like Daily Mail, Mashable, and others in the egg picture post.

Another explanation of why the egg picture is popular on social media relates to the nostalgia of the early internet age. During the early days of the internet, there is still no formulaic method to make something go viral. Internet contents at that time become popular organically due to the inherent attractiveness of the post.

These days, contents can be made artificially viral by following carefully analyzed and crafted systems. This is usually the formula that is being followed by popular brands or by the sellers who wanted to peddle their merchandise online. With the seemingly commercially-untainted egg, people have shown that they wanted something simple and authentic to follow. The egg picture also naturally piqued people's curiosity due to the obvious simplicity of the picture.

The popularity of the egg in social media was also being seen as an indicator that brands will eventually shift from the traditional television medium to online sites when doing their promotions. This can be attributed to the changing media consumption habits of young adults who prefer the internet over television. This is also being reflected in the growth of Instagram as the platform now has 1 billion users globally. The internet is also now considered as the "new prime time" for these young individuals.

When the purpose of the egg campaign was finally revealed, many people were surprised by the unexpected message. There were no associated brands, political undertones, and other usual promotions. The mental health awareness message is not a typical theme of these types of advertisements.

Other people showed optimism towards the campaign. The creators of the egg picture could have taken this opportunity to earn a huge amount of money from the advertisement but they have chosen instead to promulgate something that can help people with mental health issues. However, on the flip side, the egg post only became viral due to the Instagram platform. These social media platforms were actually being seen as the major reason for the increase in mental health cases.

According to Nik Sharma, the Head of direct-to-consumer marketing in VaynerMedia, the price of an ad space in the egg's Instagram account was estimated to be around $10 million. This is even higher than the $5.25 million price tag of a Superbowl advertisement slot. The appeal of the egg's Instagram post could mean that popular memes are set to provide the most sought-after advertisement place in the future. In the case of the egg, brands may now be trying to ride on the popularity of the egg. He also stated the reason for this as follows: "because in 2019, every viral moment is a branding opportunity." Currently, there are many brands and copy-cat handles that have been taking advantage of the egg's popularity.

OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS WITH SIMILAR IMPACT
FYRE FESTIVAL
The Fyre Festival was supposed to be an extravagant music festival in the Bahamas as seen from the campaign video of the event. However, the attraction of the festival eventually fizzled since it was discovered to be just a scam. Billy McFarland, the brain behind the festival, was able to convince popular social media influencers such as Kendall Jenner, Emily Ratajkowski, Bella Hadid, and others to post plain orange square images in their Instagram accounts to promote the event. These personalities with massive followers were instrumental in promoting the event to many users, some of whom have shelled out thousands of dollars to snag tickets. However, when they arrived at the venue, the provisions were significantly less than luxurious. This festival then shows the power of social media and its influencers in promoting events to thousands of their followers to get any message across, be it a brand-related campaign or other types of advertisements.

FREE NUGGS
Similar to the expanding popularity of the Instagram egg campaign, the Free Nuggs tweet exploded in Twitter and other media reports when Wendy's vowed to give a free one-year supply of chicken nuggets to a customer, Carter Wilkerson. All Mr. Wilkerson need to do to get this huge amount of nuggets is to be able to amass 18 million retweets in his Twitter post. Mr. Wilkerson then begged Twitter users to retweet his post. His mission seems to be impossible at first but due to his perseverance, the post was able to gain enough supporters who helped him in getting closer to his goal. Wendy's even gave him some encouragement. Eventually, popular media spread his story and this helped further his cause but not enough to bring him closer to his goal. He eventually got a massive 1.7 million number of retweets, which is still increasing every hour.

THE HALF-ONION IN A ZIPLOCK BAG
This campaign has a political undertone and it is much more controversial than the Instagram egg. The Instagram account shows half of an onion which was placed inside a Ziploc bag. The account is meant to throw some shade into the recent State of the Union address of US President Donald Trump. In its Twitter message, the account is inviting its followers to like the page in order for the account to attain more followers than the president's Twitter account. So far, the account has 632K followers on Twitter. 

 

NEGATIVE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON PEOPLE'S MENTAL HEALTH
Approximately 40% of the world's population allot an average of two hours per day on social media platforms. This is more or less equivalent to around 500,000 tweets and Snapchat pictures that are being uploaded each minute. Since the social media platforms are comparably new, not enough conclusions can be drawn yet on the impact on our well-being. The existing scientific research available primarily depends on self-assessments, which are often lacking in certain areas. Furthermore, these studies are mainly concentrated on Facebook, the largest social media platform. Nevertheless, this topic is a dynamic area and useful findings are already beginning to be discovered.

Based on the scientific findings so far, individuals turn to social media to post their rants about key aspects of society such as politics, customer service, and others. However, this is seen as a major source of stress as these political feeds are typically inflammatory in nature. Also, when 1,800 people are interviewed, women were found out to have higher stress levels than the men. Twitter was identified to be the primary reason for this since the platform can make them more aware of other people's issues.

On the other hand, Twitter can also compensate by serving as an anti-stress channel. It was discovered that as more and more women use the platform, the less stress they experience. This phenomenon is not seen in men as they typically maintain a more superficial connection with social media. The overall findings of the researchers reveal that social media use was associated with "modestly lower levels of stress."

As per the researchers from the University of California, people visiting these social media sites may adopt each other's moods. This is their conclusion after evaluating the emotional composition of more than a billion posts from 100 million Facebook users. Also, unfavorable weather can raise the numbers of negative posts by 1%. People whose spirits are dampened by the bad weather can spread this mood to the people within his or her social network.

Based on research from the Computers and Human Behaviour Journal, it was discovered that people who have admitted using seven or more social media types were three times more prone to suffer from general anxiety as compared to those who only access 0-2 platform types. Even with these findings, the researchers from the Babes-Bolyai University in Romania have admitted that the results of the study on the link of social media and anxiety are still unproven. Two studies that include over 700 students have discovered that depressive conditions such as bad moods, hopelessness, and feelings of unworthiness were connected to the quality of the interactions done online. They also discovered elevated levels of depression symptoms in those people who have been involved in negative interactions.

Another study that includes 1,700 respondents has seen a threefold likelihood of anxiety and depression in those who use the most number of social media platforms. This is caused mainly by inaccurate life perspectives, cyber-bullying, and the dreaded feeling of wasting one's time on the platforms.

With regard to self-esteem, the findings from a Penn State University research revealed that looking at the selfie photos of other people can result to lower self-esteem as users contrast their lives to those who appear to be the happiest. Based on the findings from the University of Strathclyde, Ohio University and the University of Iowa's research group, they have also discovered that women put themselves in a negative light compared to the selfies of other women. Even with these findings, Facebook still scored high on eliciting positive self-esteem if compared to other activities that promote self-awareness. Overall, as per the studies done by researchers from the Netherlands, the impact of social media on well-being are still not well-proven. Nevertheless, they have surmised that the evidence is more pronounced for those who are socially isolated. In this case, social media's impact on this group is on the negative side.

With regard to people's discussion on the negative impact of social media, this is seen as a growing trend in the past year and up to this year as seen from this trend chart on the number of time people searched for negative impact of social media. The line graph displays an intermittent but the values of the peaks were seen to be increasing as the years go by.