Can someone please explain Instagram to me?!?!
As embarrassing as it might be to admit, I don’t know how to use one of the largest social media networks in the world. Being a millennial and aspiring journalist, I clearly failed somewhere.
Until a few weeks ago (literally not even joking...I only just made an account on Instagram), I had never really seen the need to be on every single social media network. I have a Facebook, I follow people on Twitter, and somewhere in the depths of the internet is my ancient Myspace with what I'm sure is enough terrible pictures of my 8th grade duck-face to scare off any-potential employer who someday Googles my name. so why should I need to be on Instagram too?
I was totally minding my own business in my own social media world when one day some one said something that shocked me. “No one uses Facebook anymore”. While I'm sure millions of users online would disagree with that statement, maybe there was some validity to the idea. After talking with some friends at least in my real life circle, they all seemed to agree that they were doing most of their online posting through Instagram nowadays.
That meant that I was missing out on all of those things in their lives, I was falling behind in this fast-paced world. Now I know that sounds incredibly stupid to think that if I don’t see the latest baby pictures or what people were having for lunch that I was somehow behind people. But its not just with the lives of the people I know. The news is constantly referencing to information that they were able to gather via Instagram, and suddenly it occurred to me that maybe it would be worth my time to at least attempt to use yet another app. I thought maybe there was this huge part of the culture I was missing out on. And with such a huge user base, there must have been something to the site. Right??
So I finally gave in. I downloaded the app and made an account. An option popped up to instantly follow people who I was already friends with on Facebook (well at least that would make finding people a little easier) so I have this account and I'm scrolling through. I see dozens upon dozens of the exact same pictures that I've already seen people post once on Facebook. Why would people feel the need to have the exact same image on multiple social media sites? And then I noticed something else, some of the exact same people were posting the exact comments on both copies of the pictures. Why? Of course not every person liking and commenting was the same, there was some variation and some differences, but for the mot part the number of likes was right around the same number for people on both Facebook and Instagram.
So I attempted to try and experiment for myself. I thought maybe I could post a repeat picture and see if I had similar comments and numbers of likes. Finding a recent selfie, I hit the upload button. Instagram informed me I should like one of my sister's pictures from a trip to the beach. So I x’d out and tried again. I go to upload another picture, and now Instagram tells me I should check out a picture of a friends newborn. Okay, these things are great and all but why wont it let me upload my darn picture?!?
By the fourth or fifth unsuccessful attempt to upload a picture, I decided to just google it. I must be doing something wrong. As it turns out there is a large group of people who also have difficulties using a simple picture app (that group is also made up of mainly people in their 80’s). Suddenly, I was presented with a number of search ideas for websites like, “Insta for Grandma” or “social media made easy for oldies” . The internet shouldn’t be mocking my attempt to catch up with the times.
So I gave up. I deleted the app, and can still say to this day I have never posted anything on Instagram. So maybe there is some whole new world I'm missing out on, maybe I won't get every reference to new filters that is trending, but I give a lot of credit to anyone who is able to learn how to use a new social media site years after its introduced.
Also, if anyone willing to help me learn how to use the darn thing (without rubbing it in how clearly clueless I am about it), that would be much appreciated.
