a series of images of random objects and landscapes. Interspersed with the random images are edited images of beautiful women, the kind you always see on Instagram. Before and after the study, they take a self-esteem assessment and their self-esteem usually drops after seeing these edited images of women.

But here is the kicker, the images of the women flash so quickly in between these other random images that the participants don't even know they are seeing them. So their self-esteem is damaged by something they aren't even aware of.

In other words, the part of your brain that controls how you feel about yourself is not governed by logic. So even if you logically know that you are being fed a bunch of crap by your social media algorithm, it won't protect you from feeling bad about it.