I was thirteen years old when I first downloaded Instagram. I remember sitting next to my childhood best friend on the bus home when I finally gave in to her pleads.
Everyone else is on it.
You can see what our friends are up to.
We can follow each other!
Of course, I had to make an account that would help me connect with friends and classmates, and maybe even fit in with them in the process. Once I made a satisfactory profile, I was immediately met with familiar usernames and fan-based accounts to follow. If a name looked familiar from my grade, then we followed each other. If I saw a fan account that showed pictures of One Direction, then I liked everything they posted. It easily became a happy place for me, and the obsession quickly consumed me. Every day that I got on the bus after school, my first instinct was to see what the world was up to, or if Harry Styles did a fun thing on stage that was worth liking.
This habit is a continuous one. I never had a limited feed of only scrolling through those I knew. I was immediately thrown into the deep end of pictures – inspirational quotes, funny pictures, celebrity news – which all brought me joy. Yet, what initially created a source of excitement gradually turned to a two-fold addiction.
The introverted part of me craved more from this app. Friends were having fun, taking pictures, dressing up and showing off an extent of popularity. Meanwhile, I was sitting at home doing absolutely nothing.
Where did they go?
Where is that outfit from?
Why is my life not Instagram-worthy?
I felt like my profile was not making the most out of life, and this sentiment followed me around for years. It felt like if what I was doing was not worth a post, then I was not living my life correctly and needed to change how I lived.
Using Instagram has intensified these insecurities in my daily life. My decisions of what to do, wear, or publicize consumed me. Even now, it is easy to pride myself on how my profile looks through others’ eyes. Just the other day, I was choosing which posts of mine should remain on my profile, or if they should be archived because they did not fit what I thought was satisfactory for my account. This is a clear disadvantage to Instagram – when we feel like our entire world revolves around how we use this app, our identity morphs into a display of aesthetic pictures, clever captions, and the number of likes we get.
Despite a critique like this, Instagram still continues to display improvements to our lives. I have found several instances in which my experiences have been enhanced by scrolling through others’ posts and tapping past “stories”. I follow a number of influencers from YouTube and have found their lives as a source of inspiration for my personal style. When they give a shopping link to a clothing item that I would potentially want to wear, I am quick to check out the website and add it to my cart. If it is something that is out of my budget, then I try to find something cheaper and similar to match what I would want. I have found that this interaction with Instagram has rippled positive effects in how I present myself.
Just as Instagram has updated and improved overtime, so have I. Beyond the fear of missing out on what friends are up to, I have found a marketplace of inspiration that adds benefits to how I use the app each day. When I saw someone attend the Museum of Ice Cream in New York City, I was immediately intrigued and put it on my list of things to visit. If a fellow college student went out to eat in Providence, then I wanted to check the menu and maybe go there with friends, too. If I knew I was going to do something, I made sure my outfit coordinated so I could post about it. These questions that made me feel like I was missing out on my teenage years twisted my resentment into motivation.
Where did they go?
Where is that outfit from?
Is this Instagram-worthy?
Even now, as I write this and take a brief break on Instagram, my “Explore” page shows different posts pertaining to celebrity news, pictures from Disney World, easy recipes to try, and autumn-themed ideas. These are all things that I resonate with and bring me happiness; I love cooking, everything Disney-related, and seeing what fun thing Harry Styles did on stage last night in Chicago. I probably would not have seen what is happening in the world otherwise. Not only has Instagram shaped my identity, but my identity has shaped what I see on Instagram as well. My younger experiences with the app still linger, but there is a method of engagement that influences my life for the better. My personal style, physical appearance in what I wear, and how I live my life probably would not be the same if I never downloaded Instagram. It is a continuous back-and-forth where Instagram simultaneously promotes a desirable life and can still hinder one’s self-esteem. With a simple click on our phones, we have access to a timeless environment that eases our minds and creates a situated remedy away from the madness of our temporal lives. We cannot leave an app that resonates with our identity because it leaves us desiring more in both good and bad ways.
This is all to say that Instagram is not one hundred percent perfect, but it also is not a complete failure. The app adapts to our constantly changing culture where connection is vital, and our identities are extrapolated through a screen. In projecting our lives, we all contribute to the benefits and disadvantages. Just as I felt like my teenage years were passing me by while others made their activities public, it could be the case that someone else felt the exact same way about my post where I was front row to a Khalid concert. Or maybe someone sees me post a delicious brunch on my Instagram “stories” and resolves that they want to go there as well. This feeling of what is “Instagram-worthy” follows us everywhere, and by aligning our identity with the app, both positively and negatively, we often forget how just worthy our lives are without adding Instagram to it.