In 2010, two graduate students from Stanford University created an image-based social media platform called Instagram. They put their main focus on establishing a simple design in order to inspire creativity to its users. Thanks to it, Instagram has become a place for visual storytelling with enjoyers that include celebrities, artists, brands and teenagers between others.
Five years ago, I got an account on this social media platform because one of my friends recommended it. At first, I did not see the point in having one because I found it pretty useless. Now, people make fun of me due to the amount of effort I put on my account. I spend quite a lot time thinking of what pictures to post, editing them, and hoping that my followers like them. This is why this topic really interests me. I want to know how other people feel about Instagram, the amount of time they spend checking this social media site, but what is more important, the effects that Instagram has on them and how it affects the self esteem among its users. After more than 10 years being a social media user, and five years using Instagram, I have gained a lot of insights on the topic that make me predict that this image-based platform could cause an increase of self confidence on their users.
Literature Review
In this digital world that we live, we could highlight it as a positive that social media has gained thousands of users. People are discovering this new way of communication where almost 90% of young Americans claim to be active users (Sherman, Payton, Hernandez, Greenfield, & Dapretto, 2016), in an online world that had 2.14 billion users in 2015 and it is predicted to increase up to almost 3 billion of users by 2020 (Statista, 2016). Social media is a very positive way to reconnect with people from the past, share significant moments from your live, connect with people from across the world, or network with professionals. However, there has been something with social media that has not been as positive. At the same time that all these good things are happening to some of the users, some of these social media platforms, like for example Instagram, are affecting the self-esteem of some other consumers. This is something to consider because by using a social network site that is supposed to be beneficial, people that abuse it are either gaining too much self-esteem, or losing confidence. In this paper, I will talk about Instagram and the main reasons of why people use this platform, how some Instagram users are tending to be narcissists, and how these people do not feel as good about themselves as they think and are also letting others down with their pictures.
The social media site, Instagram is an image-based platform where people can take, edit and post pictures, snap them, and also send messages. According to its website, the main goal of Instagram is to connect people’s lives to the world around them through pictures. It was created in 2010 by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, two students from the Univeristy of Stanford, and it currently has more than 500 million users (Instagram, 2016)
There are different motives for people to post on this platform, but thanks to research that has been done, it is shown that surveillance, documentation, coolness and creativity are the main four reasons (Sheldon & Bryant, 2016). Surveillance or knowledge about others has been proven to be the main within the four. Instagram users want to know what others are doing, and by stalking each other’s profiles they can find out more about the economic or social status, and the relationships or friendships of other users. The fact that you can scroll down and see all the photographs that person has been posting, lets you see how they are doing in their lives. Another reason is documentation; this platform is like a virtual photo album of the user. When something exciting happens, or you travel somewhere, you are more likely to post a picture of that moment. You can also attach a caption to this picture to give it more interest and support it with details. To continue, and following with what the creators of Instagram meant to accomplish when opening this site, people post pictures due to a creativity factor. Since it is a visually based social networking site, some of the users show their creative talents and apply some of the filters to make the pictures look more artsy. Finally, another purpose is coolness and popularity. For some users, the main reason they update this site is because they have a need to be seen and feel valued. Their main purpose is self-promotion and to gain popularity. The likes and number of followers validate their popularity among their peers (Sheldon & Bryant, 2016).
This fact that some users utilize Instagram to gain popularity and they only care about the likes has a strong relation with high esteem and narcissism. A narcissist can be described as a person that is too confident on a unrealistic level (Moon, Lee, Lee, Choi, & Sung, 2016). People who suffer from narcissism are the ones that post selfies and pictures of themselves all the time to keep their profile constantly updated. They usually have high levels of social activity; they travel, go to events, and are constantly hanging out with people and they use Instagram as a way of documentation. They gain this coolness and popularity thanks to the large amount of time they spend on social media. Every single picture is planned, in order to “look cool” and portray exactly what they want; all their pictures are usually manipulated (they are taken from a specific angle, edited, or filtered). This makes them look more attractive and appealing to their followers. And, this brings likes, comments, good reviews, and followers and therefore the coolness and popularity that will eventually increase their self esteem (Sheldon & Bryant, 2016). Most of these users usually try to be an example to their followers. They call themselves influencers, and try to motivate other people. But, what it is actually happening is that, instead of being a way of motivation, they are letting people down by lowering their self confidence and also affecting themselves by being so worried about their look.
Following strangers on Instagram, whether they are part of a similar social class or demographic, or they are a celebrity with a high social status can affect the user’s self esteem or life satisfaction in a negative way because they are always making comparisons (Dion, 2016). Many women have claimed that Instagram makes them feel insecure. They never post pictures in which they do not look good. They usually get anxiety and FOMO (fear of missing out) when they look at other user’s posts. They have an important need for attention and they feel pressured all the time until it gets to the point that they have to delete their accounts because they cannot do it anymore (Gajanan, 2015). Most people may think that this is more a women’s thing, but self-confidence is something that affects both men and women; it is an attitude that makes you see how you perceive yourself and lets you achieve your goals with a positive view (Gruber, 2015). Many men have also claimed their insecurity when going through Instagram. They are actually more aware that what they see on this site is fake most of the time. They know that the use of angles, lighting and filters is what make this people to look perfect. However, they keep scrolling and feeling worse by comparing themselves to other guys (Kath, 2015).
Instagram has positive and negative ways of affecting people. As it has been shown, it depends on the use that the individual gives it how this platform can be a good resource to make connections or a way to affect their self-esteem.
Methods
This study will be done by conducting a focus group and a survey. Since most of college students are Instagram users, they will be the main target. It is assumed that by using only college students we are excluding a large amount of people that are also part of the Instagram community. However, this will give us a sense of how people in general feel about themselves and this social-network site. The questions will be sent out by email to all the students at Grand Valley State University. The first 500 students responding to the survey will be the responses that will be taken into consideration for this study. Some of this questions will provide specific information about if they are Instagram users, how much time they spend on this site, and what is their instant reaction to a comment or like they receive.
On the other hand, the focus group will be conducted with 8 different students, 4 males and 4 females. They will all be in different grades (freshman, sophomore, junior and senior), have different majors, and also be part of different economic statuses. During the focus group, the participants will be asked questions like what certain things make people feel more/less confident or how do they think a person can get famous on Instagram.
These two methods are a very convenient and effective way of gathering data since they provide qualitative and quantitative data at the same time. They are also easy to conduct and college students are usually willing to collaborate when using these procedures.
Summary
Once the focus group and the survey are taken into action and all the information is gathered, these results could help us format Instagram in the future in a way that is a complete positive experience. One of the things will be to take into account what makes people feel insecure and find a solution to make this visually network site an enjoyable place for all of their users. Further research will need to be done in order to find out how to increase people’s self confidence for example, but also in order to reveal how other people from different ages (people outside our targeted sample) feel about Instagram.