Social media’s effects on connecting people worldwide and its exponential growth in usage sparked studies on its effect on the mental state of users. In the local community of Saratoga, Instagram particularly seemed to have the ability to negatively affect the self- esteem of teenage users from comparison and overly fixation on follower counts. However, a result from a local survey targeted toward the local high schoolers disputes most of the aspects proposed. There was a contrast in expectations on every self-esteem or insecurity-related question, suggesting that the correlation between Instagram usage and self-esteem is weak on a local scale. The results also concluded that people did generally have a superficial view of Instagram. Contrasting with expectations, follower count was not a focus to be labeled “overly fixated.” Still, the results did support that such features did not necessarily correlate with a higher self-esteem level. A look into local high schoolers’ feedback on their experiences with Instagram ultimately revealed layers of complexity on the effects of social media on society.