Introduction
We are living in a world that relies on different technologies more and more. Humans cannot imagine their lives without smartphones, tablets, and numerous platform-specific apps that became available throughout the last decade. Our society began shifting towards an updated version of itself because we are becoming more digital and willing to interact with others on the territory of the Internet. With this in mind, an interesting mobile application appeared on the market. It allowed people to share their photos and was organized in the form of a social network using concepts such as followers and likes. The title of this app was Instagram. Since its initial release, the application became much more powerful and stable, similar to its real-life impact. The influence of Instagram became more of a trend rather than a consistent pattern because of its major popularity among the younger layer of the world’s population. Therefore, it can be hypothesized that the positive impact of Instagram is multifaceted and can be divided into several different directions that combine into a unique experience helping humans to appreciate themselves and find more ways to live in harmony.
How Instagram Impacts Our Society
The first reason to believe that Instagram is rather influential and positively affects our society is the development of an open forum for opinions. Using sharing pictures, we become able to amalgamate with the world that is oversaturated with text. In other words, there are Instagram users that decided to take on the role of social monitors and share the most vivid pieces of information with their followers. This resulted in a situation where their visual messages capture the attention of a large auditory that is interested in seeing these images. Therefore, Instagram is responsible for the advent of the so-called social critics that can also be defined as activists of the social networking world (Al-Kandari et al. 55). It can also be mentioned here that Instagram contributed to the development of a segment of society that can be characterized as a proactive youth. The latter is interested in resolving the issues that impact our society, but they are doing it in an improved way.
Another way in which Instagram affects our society is a direct shift toward a consumerist society. Every day that you spend on Instagram, you will be bombarded by images and videos shared by numerous brand names that are trying to convince you to purchase their products. This led to a situation where Instagram turned into a virtual battlefield where different businesses are trying to conquer the market and reach a bigger audience daily (Al-Kandari et al. 55). For the majority of these companies, it is a mere marketing opportunity, but it has an impact on our culture as well. We see these visual advertisements every day, and it leads to a situation where the modern youth is growing up with the idea that they may be subject to buying some of these products because they are promoted on Instagram. Currently, approximately more than half of all businesses that have Instagram accounts have tried to use Instagram for their marketing purposes. This significantly impacted our culture and turned out to be a switch that can be perceived as a painless modification of modern values that were replaced by some slightly more materialistic worldviews (Hochman and Manovich 10). This led to a situation where youth became more narcissistic while trying to show off and get in line with large brands that are always marketing expensive products.
At the same time, one of the biggest advantages of Instagram that impacted our society the most is the ability to interact with other people from all over the world. We can talk to people that we will never meet in person because they live too far but we will always have the opportunity to see how they live and what their interests are (Salomon 408). The essential impact of this possibility lies in the fact that our society becomes more online-oriented and now we can interact remotely instead of being tied to our local places, friends, and events. From this point of view, Instagram is practically magic because it allows you to go live and talk to people that you may never see in person throughout the whole life.
The last way in which Instagram impacted our society is how it gives us access to numerous sources of information. The difference is that Instagram significantly facilitated and reworked this process so now we do not have to go and watch TV, for example, or read newspapers. On the one hand, the modern generation can be seen as the laziest one, but there is nothing wrong with using all the means of technological innovations to learn more about the latest news from all over the world in a matter of seconds (Al-Kandari et al. 56). The culture of hashtagging took over the Internet by storm and Instagram is known as the frontrunner of this movement. Even though there may be posts that are hashtagged merely for the sake of it and their relevance is questionable, the majority of posts are designed to be informative and provide all the necessary information to any person interested in these facts. Our society majorly benefits from using Instagram, and it may be safe to say that being lazy does not always bear a negative connotation, especially when it comes to using Instagram to access chats with friends from all over the world and breaking news from all areas of interest.
Conclusion
There will be applications that will follow the example of Instagram and create an even more powerful impact on our culture. These online tools will give us the possibility to access different sources of information instantaneously. On a bigger scale, it can be concluded that even though the impact of Instagram on our society is a major event in human history, this is only the beginning and the practices regarding the creation of a perfect social networking app will be reviewed numerous times. While considering the bad sides of Instagram, we should appreciate it for the opportunity to reach out to the world and share a personal vision that can contribute to the cultural and behavioral development of our society. Therefore, the impact of the use of Instagram can be seen as powerful as a political campaign that is commonly launched as a means of shaping community views and interests. For the modern youth, Instagram became a unique news sharing opportunity that has an unlimited potential that must be used by both government and distinct individuals.
Works Cited
Al-Kandari, Ali, et al. “The Influence of Culture on Instagram Use.” Journal of Advances in Information Technology , vol. 7, no. 1, 2016, pp. 54-57.
Hochman, Nadav, and Lev Manovich. “Zooming into an Instagram City: Reading the Local Through Social Media.” First Monday, vol. 18, no. 7, 2013, pp. 1-14.
Salomon, Danielle. “Moving on from Facebook: Using Instagram to Connect with Undergraduates and Engage in Teaching and Learning.” College & Research Libraries News, vol. 74, no. 8, 2013, pp. 408-412.