Monday Snow Day: Instagram Expectations

The podcast we were assigned to listen to definitely speaks to the article “Technology Doesn’t Make Us Less Social; It Just Changes the Way We Socialize,” in both positive and negative ways. The girls in the podcast are newly freshmen in high school and spend a lot of time on social media, especially Instagram. The way they socialize is a lot different than the way I socialize, but it doesn’t make them less social. If anything these girls seem to be a lot more social than most of the people I know.

I don’t really see the appeal of spending hours taking the “perfect” photo and asking all your friends if they think you should post it. These girls spend a lot of their time monitoring Instagram after each selfie they post to figure out who liked their pictures and what they said in each comment. Then, if their friends don’t like the picture the get upset because apparently being friends with someone means you are then required to like everything they post. These girls just expect people to like their picture and even comment, and they expect it to be nice comments about how pretty they are.

One thing that really bothers me about the way people socialize today was mention in the podcast when the girls were talking about people telling them they hated them for being pretty. I think they even mentioned some girl commenting that they wanted to throw her onto the train tracks because she was so pretty. Is that okay? If so, then how does someone respond to that, by saying “no I want to throw you”? Although, most of the comments that are left on the girl’s photos are superficial, comments like the previous example are more frequent then most people expect, and that is really
worrying.

I just find it strange that these girls rely on this social media app so much it’s like they are in a co-dependent relationship with Instagram. The way we socialize is definitely different than the way the girls do, but neither are any less than the other.