The photo-sharing app has become something of a phenomenon for everyone from bloggers to brands, celebrities, magazines and athletes. We all love to see what everyone else is up to and the more access we get and the faster we can get it, the more obsessed we become. Over 200 million users love Instagram. It’s a simple way to capture and share the world’s moments on your phone. You can customize your photos and videos with one of several gorgeous and custom built filter effects and transform everyday moments into works of art you’ll want to share with friends and family. Luckily, this is one addiction that’s more fun than it is dangerous.
You’ve started to view the world exclusively in squares. Accordingly, rectangular photos on social media now look positively amateur. You find yourself frequently reviewing your own Instagram stream critically to assess what other people might think of you, based on your most recent photos. Full-blown, time-eating, day-wasting addiction, made worse by the convenience of it always only a touch away on your mobile phone. I’m a self-diagnosed addict.
I scroll through my newsfeed while at the lunch table, from my lecture class seat, while waiting for a red light to change (I have two “texting” tickets to prove it) or even during the 45-second period it takes to defrost a frozen meal in the microwave. it allows friends to document their dinners, share children’s first day of school outfits and recount Halloween costumes of years past in epic “#TBT,” or “Throwback Thursday” posts. The hashtag(s) for your image is of utmost importance #nofilter #OOTD #throwbackthursday #latergram.
One Simple Number Determines How Cool You Are On Instagram. The point, according to kids, is to search for spammy hashtags like #followforfollow, and then begin to follow dozens of accounts. Once those people follow you back as promised, you rapidly unfollow them and hope they don’t notice. Doing this enough will help you build up your followers, even though it’s time-consuming, annoying, and kind of not the point of Instagram. As you keep raising your number of followers and lowering the number of folks you follow, your ratio gets better and better. For instance: Number of followers: 829 / Number of following: 358 = 2.31. So, for every one person I follow, 2.3 people follow me. The higher your number is, the cooler you are (so say the kids.) The point is to follow almost no one but have tons of followers.
People have now become so addicted to Instagram that they use ‘insta’ as a verb twice a day. I wonder what will the coming generation do..! Will Instagram die by then or there would be new norms! Perhaps, time will tell about it. Till then #keep #uploading #stay #addictive #ok #bye.
– Tanvi Shah
3 Comments