Why is Pinterest so Problematic?

Think of a website that markets itself as being useful but is really anything but that. It pretends to offer inspiration, but in the end, it’s just a waste of time. It’s got pages and pages of picture-perfect photos that lead people down rabbit holes of aesthetic color schemes. Any guesses as to what I’m getting at? 

If you guessed Pinterest, you’re right!

These qualities exist in one of the most popular websites for quite literally anything - from recipes to drawing ideas. But Pinterest is useless at its job.

Imagine someone who goes on Pinterest hoping to find inspiration but ends up spending at least an hour scrolling through random photos, completely forgetting what they were trying to find in the first place. Yet somehow, they have pride that they actually accomplished something useful. It’s a trap, since it leads the innocent Pinterest user back to Pinterest over and over again, hoping that even if the original project won’t be accomplished, inspiration may be found for something else. This causes screen time to skyrocket and keeps people on their phones. 

Unfortunately, this is the story of many Pinterest users.

To make matters worse, Pinterest’s creators were not blind to the problem of the website being unproductive. In fact, Pinterest is pretty much one big marketing scheme. Pinterest then makes advertisements nearly indistinguishable from actual posts, so it’s really easy to accidentally click on them, bringing in more money to corporations, not everyday Pinterest users. This is what funds the website because advertisers pay Pinterest based on the number of clicks. Pinterest thrives off the fact that this is so commonly done. In fact, according to hootsuite, a major social media management company, “between October 2021 and October 2022, Pinterest ads reached 271 million users.” Actually, just these advertisements “generated 2.8 billion U.S. dollars” in 2022, according to statista, a platform that provides statistics for businesses. This income “is expected to further grow to reach 5.1 billion U.S. dollars by 2027”

Plus, it’s not as if Pinterest is the only and best space to spark some new ideas. Google easily outshines Pinterest when one is looking for inspiration because it searches for images from the entire web, which leads to more results and stronger, more actionable leads on projects and creative ideas.

Furthermore, Pinterest can greatly lower people’s self esteem. For example, if someone wants to clean their room, they could do it by themselves. A Pinterest addict, however, will look on the website for inspiration, even though Pinterest often causes bad feelings about not having a “perfect” or “aesthetic” room. There are many folks who post on Pinterest like it’s their job and have plenty of time to make their room picturesque.

Often these ideas aren’t sustainable, since most of us don’t have the whole day to work on Pinterest posts. In turn, you can feel a lot of shame if an idea doesn’t work for you. For example, on Pinterest I constantly heard about the idea of time blocking: “time blocking is great!” “To-do lists don’t work without time blocking!” Somehow, this strategy just didn’t work for me, though. I constantly felt like I wasn’t studying effectively, and eventually decided to stop doing what worked for me, which only resulted in burnout. The root of the problem was Pinterest, not my study skills.

In addition, Pinterest “reinforces plenty of narcissistic tendencies,” according to Psychology Today. This is because people connect “‘likes”’ with their actual worth. If someone gets a lot of likes, they may feel unnecessarily narcissistic, but if they get a few less likes than normal, their self esteem may drop even if the content is just as good.

Lastly, Pinterest not only has negative mental impacts, but is a waste of money as well. Pinterest advertises itself as free, but that isn’t entirely true. It’s so easy to see something that’s cool on Pinterest and buy it impulsively. According to a bankrate survey, “U.S. adults have spent $71 billion on impulse buys based on what they saw on social media.” and “57 percent of those impulse buyers regretted at least one of their purchases.”

In conclusion, Pinterest is a toxic social media platform that often leads to burnout. It contributes to mental health challenges on many levels and is nearly always a huge waste of time. For these reasons, Pinterest isn't worth it.