Let's take a look at a typical night out with friends. Together you plan out a trip to a certain destination or you decide to grab a bite to eat. What is the usual action the happens right after arriving at the location or the moment that your food arrives? Instead of taking the moment in or begin eating, people will reach into their pockets and make the extra effort to capture that perfect photo for, "The gram". Instagram, is actually one of my favorite social media platforms to use and I like scrolling down checking out what my friends are up too. There is however, detremental effects from using Instagram that I have seen within myself and others. With Instagram, we begin thinking that "the grass is really greener on the otherside" from the posts from our friends. We scroll down and see that jaw-dropping photo from your friend visiting a landmark, a well filtered photo of a meal, or a photo of a bodybuilder/model with each of these photos reaching hundered if not thousands of likes and comments. From these posts, emotions such as jealousy, envy, anger or even depression might subside. Little do we know that, that meal photo was heavily edited, and filtered to look the way it is and for some reason we don't see how manipulative these images can be just like a magazine. Personally, I have scrolled down and wished I could travel as much as one of my friends has, or have that beatiful car, yet I cannot understand the reality of those photos. What may look like a happy and cheerful post can only show half of the picture. When posting, a person can go to extreme lengths to capture the perfect photo, create a well worded caption and carefully selecting the appropriate filter. Why do we chose to do all of these things for a simple "Like"? Usage of Instagram creates a culture where everyone is interested in being accepted, trying to show how fun their life is and trying to recieve the most likes in comments to reassure sometime of insecurity. I can easily, recall seeing posts of my friends posting workout photos in which they would recieve praise or a photo of a girl after doing her makeup. It may not always be the case, but we seek acceptance and satisfaction through the certain amount of likes and comments we get on Instagram. When we go through the long effort to capture,edit and post the photo only to recieve 10 likes and 0 comments we feel like a failure, unaccepted, or unattractive. I feel as if moments that should be appreciated are no longer apprecaited because everyone is attempting to capture or record it to show off online. With this being said, I know I cannot stop using Instagram, it remains my go to application tos see how my friends are doing. I have however stopped and thought of the effects its usage can have on me.
5 Comments
Martin Almaraz
3/17/2017 11:37:15 am
Hello Joseph,
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Araceli Gopar
3/24/2017 08:47:31 pm
Hello Joseph,
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Darren Chan
5/3/2017 07:37:16 pm
I see this all the time on Instagram. So many people want the follows and likes. I see so many users use the same pic all the time, and what is weird is they don't give credit to the owner and they pretend its their photo which makes it look even worse.
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Lesly Garcia
5/8/2017 01:22:54 pm
Joseph, like many have said, I think the Instagram Effect is really interesting. I have read articles about people that are really affected by this and has been shown to be a psychological issue when one is constantly posting on social media. Like you said I think some people get to carried away with trying to make everything they do and have look amazing on social media.
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AuthorFirst generation computer scientist that loves football. Archives
May 2017
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