A separate world- Instagram Jaskirat Singh Thind Dr. Tamar Shirinian Millsaps College Introduction Instagram is a fast and fun way to share your photos with friends and family. It is a photo sharing on a global base as well for a local community. Almost every teenager and kid has an Instagram. This allows a person to express more about themselves and where they are from. Instagram is an online mobile photo-sharing, video-sharing, and social networking service that enables its users to take pictures or videos and share them either publicly or privately on the app. The user can add a comment below the picture or video to mention other friends or people that are related to the picture and can also say anything about the post. Instagram lets its users share their information and posts to a variety of other social networking platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Flickr. What I explored is how Instagram is now considered a culture in everyone's life. Why do we put our lives on Instagram? I believe that Instagram is a world of its own- one that a person can study on its own terms.
I pulled up Instagram on my phone on a Friday. My phone was blowing up because so many people posted pics about Friday and how happy they were. My cousin posted a picture of the sunrise and said, "Blessed to see another day! #Friday" I kept scrolling and noticed a meme posted by Anthony. The meme was saying how one's uncle got a drone, and now he is scaring people by putting a scary costume on the drone and flying it around. The post after that was advertised by a Jeep Club, and it showed someone showing off their Jeep and their fancy tires on it. I keep scrolling through and I see a picture of YG and the American flag. When I clicked on it, the song "**** Donald Trump" came on. In the comments, it said, "Our opinion is that in the age of a technologically empowered and nuclear-armed planet, Separation is the enemy. The Next Leader of America will be the most pivotal president for this reasonsRegister ASAP and choose wisely. #FDT" When looking at these posts, you see a lot of different situations occurring. What Instagram does is it allows equal space for different people with different pictures to freely express their life. The first thought that comes to mind is that Instagram is a place that helps communicate with other people and is somewhat another realm where someone could have a new identity, like a digital identity. When I scroll down more, I notice how people post a lot of pictures of themselves. Comment by Thind, Jus: This is an exciting concept. How is identity understood or how it's developed via an online visual platform? Is having a digital identity easier to create?
Methodology
My setting is an iPhone 6s while using the Instagram application. I looked at Instagram most of the day and spent time period of looking at posts till December 12. I will observe some pictures in my social feed and the comments below them. By following my social f...