Wait, let me Instagram this.” That’s pretty much all I’ve heard this summer since I’ve been home. Whether I’m out with friends, family or even just by myself, it’s all about Instagram.
Instagram is a photo-sharing service only available on mobile devices, letting users experiment with different filters to make their photos appear artsy to their friends. But why has it become such a phenomenon? Why isn’t sharing pictures on Facebook and Twitter with friends enough?
For me, I like being creative. I like to doodle. I like to write. I like feeling relatively artsy. Instagram can make that happen. What would just be a normal picture turns into a canvas to mix colors or focus, something that Facebook and Twitter applications do not let you do.
Ever since social media became “a thing,” if someone isn’t up to date with it, he or she is considered behind. Or at least, I consider them behind. I’m a person who checks Facebook, Twitter, my email and Instagram multiple times daily. What can I say, I like to be in the know.
I guess it’s my journalism major need-to-know-all-the-news-at-once type of personality that makes me that way, but at what point will social media outlets get too out of hand?
Think about reality shows for a minute and how they started: Candid Camera began in 1948. Where are we now? We’re Keeping Up with the Kardashians. The same goes for social media: Computers were only just developing in the 1950s, and 60 years later people are “liking” photos of their friends on a website.
These changes happened over a number of decades, but since the creation of Facebook in 2004, social media has skyrocketed in its popularity.
Social media, because of its intense use in today’s society, is always going to change. People are always going to want to check out a new app, a new website or a new blog. In that sense, social media will only get out of hand if the world continues to get more out of hand.
I see social media as a way for people to express themselves. People vent about their days, talk to their friends and comment on the world’s problems. As financial crises continue to escalate, as people continue to rebel, as violence continues to wreak havoc, people want to share their opinions.
I follow people on Twitter and Instagram ranging from my friends to celebrities to organizations and news agencies, among other resources. Social media helps connect me to the world that I cannot see in front of me. Particularly for college students, we have a tendency to get so enmeshed in our own little bubble that we forget about the rest of the world. Instagram does more than Facebook and Twitter – it lets us see the world through others’ eyes, which was the next logical step in social media technology.
So, the next time people want to Instagram you, just let it happen. And if you say no, they’ll probably do it anyway.
David Oliver is a junior journalism major. He can be reached at opinion@umdbk.com.
