The purpose of this study was to explore how people communicate anxiety disorders on Instagram. Anxiety disorders are one of the most common mental illnesses in the United States, rates of anxiety disorders are increasing globally, yet it's difficult to diagnose it in the early stages. Social media platforms have become one of the primary ways for people to communicate and express themselves, and Instagram, as a photo-based social media site, provides an opportunity to examine both visual and textual content. Based on the social sharing of emotions framework, this paper used the quantitative content analysis method to explore what symptoms, visual content, coping strategies, and social exchange information people shared on anxiety disorder tagged Instagram posts, and the study found that less social networking activity shows on anxiety disorder tagged Instagram posts, compare with general Instagram photo. Seeking social contact and narration are two social exchange behaviors that play a substantial role in anxiety disorder topic communities on Instagram. There are a lot more captioned photo posts with anxiety disorder tagged photo than the general Instagram photo, and many of the captioned photos are mental status related content. What's more, a large amount of the anxiety disorder tagged Instagram posts contains narration of their experiences, coping strategies and symptoms, which shows peer-to-peer support. A significant association has been found between gender and vigilant coping strategies. These findings underscore the importance to look at mental health-related problems on social media.
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