Eric Charbonneau/Invision/AP
Actress Selena Gomez takes a picture with a fan.
- Selena Gomez said on a morning talk show Wednesday that she doesn't have the Instagram app on her phone.
- It's surprising for Gomez, an actress whose 152 million Instagram followers make her the platform's third-most-followed star.
- Gomez has been outspoken about social media's effect on her own mental health and her phone-addicted generation of fans.
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Selena Gomez may be one of the most followed people on Instagram, but the actress recently revealed she doesn't even have the photo-sharing app on her phone.
Gomez, who has 152 million Instagram followers, has been an outspoken critic about the "dangerous" effects of social media, and hasn't shied away from taking breaks from social platforms to take care of her own mental health. It's still a bit surprising, however, that Gomez doesn't have the app on her phone - she says she logs "periodically" onto Instagram on someone else's phone to check her account.
"It's just become really unhealthy, I think personally, for young people including myself, to spend all of their time fixating on all these comments and letting this stuff in, and it was affecting me," Gomez said on "Live with Kelly and Ryan" on Wednesday. "It would make me depressed. It would make me feel not good about myself, and look at my body differently, and all kinds of stuff."
Gomez is the third-most-followed person on Instagram behind soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo (170 million followers) and singer Ariana Grande (157 million followers). Although she once held the top spot, Gomez has maintained her popularity despite not posting as regularly as celebrities with half her following.
At the end of 2018, Gomez took a four-month hiatus from Instagram, partly due to negative comments she had received, as well as her personal troubles dealing with mental health issues. She returned to the platform in January, and has warned about how "terrible" social media can be during her media tour for her newest movie, "Dead Don't Die."
At the Cannes Film Festival last month, Gomez shared how detrimental social media has been to her phone-obsessed generation, and the importance of limiting time on platforms like Instagram.
"I would say for my generation, specifically, social media has really been terrible. It does scare me when you see how exposed these young boys and young girls are," Gomez said at the festival. "It just scares me. I'll see these young girls at meet and greets. They are devastated, dealing with bullying and not being able to have their own voice."
