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Picture Perfect : How Instagram Influences its Users

In the modern day, social media apps dominate the lives of everyone. From people casually browsing Facebook for a couple hours a day to others making profit off of their social media presence, social media is extremely prominent in everyday life. While the positives of social media -- being more connected with one another, being more in touch and updated with the world -- are often celebrated and talked about, the negatives are seldom ever brought into light. As a form of media, social media apps can be extremely influential to the population. Instagram, a popular photo sharing social media app, has proven to be influential in the lives of its users, both good and bad. By looking at Instagram and it’s users, content, as well as other statistics, it becomes easier to understand how a social media app is able to influence a perception of perfection and negatively affect users.

    Instagram has a large user base, with nearly 80 million users worldwide in 2018. It serves as a photo and video sharing app, where users post their content and others are able to comment and share. Instagram is able to cater to a lot of people due to the different types of content on the app, which include genres such as comedy, DIY, fitness, and beauty among countless others. It can be used for personal means like connecting with friends and family as well as a promotional grounds for businesses and influencers alike. On the personal end, users are able to follow others and see content they most like. Typically, people tend to follow their peers, family members, and others they know in real life.

    As a social networking app, Instagram does connect its users to one another through the photos and videos that are posted and shared. However, sometimes having a glimpse into others’ lives can create feelings of anxiety and loneliness. In “Active Audiences and the Construction of Meaning” by David Croteau and William D Hoynes, they discuss how audiences are actually active in how they internalize media. They state “... audiences, then, may not construct the meaning intended by the producer, nor will all audience members construct the same meaning from the same media text,” (Croteau & Hoynes 263). Applying this to personal use of Instagram, an individual may interpret a friend’s post in a negative way, affecting their self esteem. An example of this would if someone sees their friend share a photo featuring a recent get together with all their mutual friends, that person may feel lonely, asking questions like “Why was I not invited? What did I do to be left out?”. Of course, it is not the poster’s intention of making their friend feel bad but that is how one person may interpret the post. Another example of this happening can be when people post their own successes, to which others may beat themselves up for, as they are not achieving the same things as their peers. In both cases, these situations can lead an individual to feel incompetent as they are not like their peers.

Instagram is also used by businesses and users known as “influencers”. Influencers are a  type of user that typically have large follower counts and post regularly. Now with businesses, there is a straight forward promotion of a product, an example being McDonald’s posting a photo of their food. With influencers, products may be promoted, but it is often a lifestyle that is promoted through the photos and videos. What an influencer essentially does is create a life that other people will find attractive. The content they post will reinforce the lifestyle they are trying to promote. While it is not inherently bad to promote certain lifestyles, it becomes more of an issue when only half of the story is being shared.

One criticism of influencers is that while they continuously post about their luxurious life styles and sharing about how great their lives are, they usually fail to share the reality of how they were able to achieve these lives. A majority of influencers are already well off and rich enough to afford all these vacations. They are able to achieve these luxuries and riches because they are already rich. Another criticism on influencers is that they are potentially being dishonest with their users.  More commonly seen in the beauty sphere of Instagram, influencers may share photos of themselves, with captions stating that they are “barefaced” or not wearing any makeup. What these influencers may fail to share is that they may have alter the photo to their liking, may have actually worn makeup or in extreme cases, have cosmetic enhancements or surgery done. In both of these examples, influencers are deceiving their audiences while promoting something that might not be possible to achieve through normal means.

Regardless if all influencers are deceiving their audiences or not, the influence can still be impactful. In Daniel G. McDonald’s article, “Twentieth-Century Media Effects Research”, he briefly mentions the concept of “Cultivation Theory”. Cultivation theory explains that “..the more one uses television, the more he or she will accept the ‘tv world’ as reflective of reality,” (McDonald 191-192). Although this theory is primarily associated with television and has shown little results in formal research, it is not far-fetch to think that media in general could influence consumers this way. In which consumers believe the material that is given to them is reflective of reality. Applying this theory to the Instagram influencers potentially deceiving their followers, the content is now potentially dangerous as it is promoting a reality that is not realistic or achievable to the average user. Cultivation theory could potentially be applied to teenagers and younger audiences of Instagram, as they are more susceptible to believing what they are shown to be reality.

With older generations understanding that media is not always what it appears to be on the surface, the problems arise primarily through the younger generations. Children tend to only see things as they are presented, rarely ever questioning if there’s another side of the story. This, combined with the fact that more children are gaining access to numerous social media apps, leads to more and more young people having unrealistic expectations of they expect life to be or even what they expect out of themselves. As I’ve learned from one of Doctor Anderson’s early lectures, the rates of teens causing self harm and commiting suicide have raised significantly with the rise of Instagram and other similar apps such as Snapchat (Lecture, Jan.  9). From exposure to so many different people and lives, these children have essentially created an expectation of their lives that is impossible to achieve through ordinary means.

Instagram and the countless other social media apps like it may not go away, but it is important to teach younger audiences the importance of media literacy as well as being aware of the double sided nature of these apps. It is important to remind consumers of content on Instagram that people tend to only share things that represent themselves in a positive light. Seldom to people share their flaws or downfalls on these apps. Another thing to teach is that while the app is full of average people, there are still businesses and users who are trying to make money through any sort of means. That is it important to be aware of what is shared and how authentic those posts may be.

Social media apps were not created with the purpose to destroy people’s self esteem. Again, these types of apps were made just to share moments with one another and connect with peers. We must acknowledge that but it is just as important to acknowledge that these apps can and do have negative effects on its users. Social media should be a space where people enjoy what they see, and not beat themselves up over what is impossible.

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