Instagram has a simple goal: Imagine a world more connected through photos. It uses a simple process: download the free app to any smartphone device, snap a picture, choose a filter, write a caption and share–either privately or publicly–with fellow Instagrammers.
The wildly popular app tells the story of our lives through a series of vintage-esque images. Its convenience and accessibility is a testament to the brilliant innovation of our generation. However, I can’t help but wonder if Instagram is connecting the world through photos or creating a world all its own. Why are we documenting life instead of enjoying it?
In just two years, the app has acquired more than 100 million users worldwide who upload more than five million photos each day. Instagram gains one new user, 575 likes, 81 comments and 58 new photos every second. 
To better explain the magnitude of this application, it’s important to note that Facebook purchased Instagram earlier this year for a jaw-dropping $1 billion. That’s about one-fourth of the social media powerhouse’s “cash stash,” invested in one application. It was Facebook’s biggest acquisition to date and Mark Zuckerberg’s brilliant stamp of approval.
Why do we love it?
Instagram is mindless, visually enticing and easy to use. More importantly, it caters to our generation’s notoriously short attention span. Arguably, to a fault.
According to Huffington Post, the average Instagram user spent 257 minutes accessing the photo-sharing site via mobile device in August, while the average Twitter user over the same period spent 170 minutes viewing.
In other words, people are getting distracted. The application makes it hard to enjoy a fleeting moment without feeling a compulsion to document it.
For many, the constant connectivity is a source of comfort. Sherry Turkle, founder and director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, considered the way that young people feel as though technology is a part of them.
“With the constant possibility of connectivity, one of the things that I see is people almost feeling as if they can’t feel their feeling unless they’re connected,” Turkle said.
Instagram provides us with a place to share what we feel, how we live and who we are.
I’ll shoot straight with you. When I am busy, exhausted and in serious need of a shower, you can bet I won’t be snapping pictures. With the exception of a moment so bad that it’s funny, Instagram is reserved for happy things. Hence my personal collection of puppy photos, food snapshots and pretty places, just as they appear before my eyes … sort of.
The Guardian’s Kate Bevin argued that Instagram’s faux-aged filters “add a history, a longevity to the image that it intrinsically doesn’t have.”
The effect is fun and eye-catching, but that’s not how it appeared to us. By manipulating the image, in effect, it manipulates the moment.
For example, I have an image of a gorilla at the San Diego Zoo. It was a real photo and uploaded almost instantly, but it was also one of 10 failed attempts to capture the “fun” because apparently gorillas couldn’t care less about lighting, window glare and holding still. Much like a lot of those picture-worthy moments.
Alas, there’s always Lo-fi. Nobody has to know that your candid moment took seven minutes to edit or that the beautiful image existed among a whole bunch of sub-par ones.
Still, the real purpose of the application remains. Instagram connects us.
It’s the spot in cyberland where I can check up on my dad in China, my cousins in The Emirates or my best friend, a travel journalist. Even my Grandma has taken to uploading pictures of her adventures around with world with a rather appropriate username @GmaC.
This is where my concern for authenticity and honesty ends. At the end of the day, I don’t mind if I waste a few extra minutes paging through pictures or adding a faux history, if it means that I can exchange a glimpse of my day–filtered or not–with the people I love. Instagram isn’t so much about documenting our lives as it is about sharing them. That’s where the enjoyment lies.
Author’s note: This piece was written prior to Instagram’s change of privacy policy, citing that a business or other entity may pay Instagram to use the images uploaded by users without any compensation to them. While I do believe the app is a beneficial tool that connects friends and family, I find the lack of privacy to be unmerited. The foundation of this app is, and will always be, its loyal users. Selling their photos implies that the company has a genuine disregard for the users best interest.
Carly Samuelson can be reached at samu5380@stthomas.edu.