Instagramming Your Food Can Make It Less Enjoyable: 4 Fast Facts About New Instagram Study

Gone are the days where the protocol of consuming your meal entailed picking up your cutlery and ingesting the food. In this age of smartphone and social media apps, it is not uncommon for the process of eating out to go something like this: Four Square check-in, Snap Chat, Instagram, tweet on Twitter, Facebook update, eat. The most popular offender is Instagram, as users are not shy of taking pictures of their meal--sometimes they are creative and beautiful, and sometimes they are not--and posting their amateur "food porn" on social media.

A new study from scientists at Brigham Young University has found taking pictures of your food makes your meal less enjoyable. The logic is simple: By posting and viewing pictures of others' meals, you are exposing yourself to food and ruining your appetite, as you are more likely to feel that you have already consumed food. According to the study, which was published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, seeing too many food porn pictures increases your sense of satiation. "In a way, you're becoming tired of that taste without even eating the food," said study coauthor and BYU professor Ryan Elder to Daily Maily UK. "It's sensory boredom - you've kind of moved on. You don't want that taste experience anymore."

Here are four fast facts about the study: 1. The study recruited 232 subjects for the study and had the participants look at pictures of food and then rate the pictures. The subjects were divided in half, and given 60 pictures of sweet or savory snacks, and then asked to rate the pictures. The participants were then given a savory snack in real life and then had to rate how much they enjoyed consuming the snack. The subjects that were asked to view savory snacks reported enjoying the savory snack less than those who saw pictures of sweet snacks. 2. "You do have to look at a decent number of pictures to get these effects," Elder said in a press release. "It's not like if you look at something two or three times you'll get that satiated effect."

3. But one could argue that perhaps the problem is not in overexposure, but unrealisticly high expectations. Most food porn pictures have been styled, filtered and perfected to look amazing. And unfortunately, most people do not get to eat such aesthetically pleasing foods which can result in food disatisfaction. 4. Additionally, the researchers have pointed out that this unexpected side effect of looking at food pictures can prove strategic for dieting purposes. Consider this: If staring at pictures of food makes you want to eat it less, then staring at your trouble foods or unhealthy foods can help you from consuming it.