The combination of these ambivalent qualities that Instagram constructs, creates monstrous elements that impacts the users’ experience and personal life. The contradictory combination of 1) connectedness and the fear of missing out, 2) self-affirmation and feedback-seeking, and 3) passive following/expression and social comparison, create contradictory positive and negative stimulation in the Instagram user. As Biles describes it, “mingling characteristics that human minds want to keep distinct; as ‘boundary objects’ straddling and blurring the borders between seeming opposites, monsters thus embody ambivalent attributes” (149). These mingling characteristics of Instagram blur the border of self-enhancement and self-destruction. The result
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Langdon Winner argues that technologies are designed to arrange power and certain political agendas. Many forms of technology have social impacts that can be evaluated by responsive political relationships, as society forms technology that will ultimately hope to fix a problem or create predicted outcomes and foundations for political goals. Technologies create certain social constructions that influence and order societal affairs, and the original interactions to the technology or system often become the foundations for new public structure (Winner, 127-128). Although Instagram is not necessarily an artifact with physical use, it creates an addictive social construction that creates social expectations and Western idealism, intrinsically political. Instagram was created to influence people and was woven into part of society to stimulate and create a more collective cultural ordering of shared Western ideals. This political arrangement was intentional, as Winner argues, “the technological deck has been stacked long in advance to favor certain social interests” (Winner, 126). It is important to note that the social conformism that Instagram creates may have been subconscious in the design of the site, but nonetheless was still inherently deliberate. As Winner describes, “Consciously or not, deliberately or inadvertently, societies chose …show more content…
So, if you’re an active Instagram user, why should you care and how can you recover from the grip of Instagram? Self-worth is important for life satisfaction, so accept yourself as good enough, and discontinue passive following that is more self-destructive than inspirational. Don’t try to create an image that you believe is a better you than you, your biological living and breathing self is awesome. Also, get out and smell the flowers instead of taking pictures of them, your life is too interesting to waste by looking at pictures of other people. Instagram can be a positive site if it is interacted with in small doses and used for healthy and inter-personal relationships. In addition, when Instagram becomes politically constructive, it is important to notice because “in our times people are often willing to make drastic changes in the way they live to accord with technological innovation at the same time they would resist similar kinds of changes justified on political grounds” (Winner, 135). So don’t go changing yourself just because there are cool pictures Instagram, uniqueness is better than fitting into Western Idealism (and often
Langdon Winner argues that technologies are designed to arrange power and certain political agendas. Many forms of technology have social impacts that can be evaluated by responsive political relationships, as society forms technology that will ultimately hope to fix a problem or create predicted outcomes and foundations for political goals. Technologies create certain social constructions that influence and order societal affairs, and the original interactions to the technology or system often become the foundations for new public structure (Winner, 127-128). Although Instagram is not necessarily an artifact with physical use, it creates an addictive social construction that creates social expectations and Western idealism, intrinsically political. Instagram was created to influence people and was woven into part of society to stimulate and create a more collective cultural ordering of shared Western ideals. This political arrangement was intentional, as Winner argues, “the technological deck has been stacked long in advance to favor certain social interests” (Winner, 126). It is important to note that the social conformism that Instagram creates may have been subconscious in the design of the site, but nonetheless was still inherently deliberate. As Winner describes, “Consciously or not, deliberately or inadvertently, societies chose …show more content…
So, if you’re an active Instagram user, why should you care and how can you recover from the grip of Instagram? Self-worth is important for life satisfaction, so accept yourself as good enough, and discontinue passive following that is more self-destructive than inspirational. Don’t try to create an image that you believe is a better you than you, your biological living and breathing self is awesome. Also, get out and smell the flowers instead of taking pictures of them, your life is too interesting to waste by looking at pictures of other people. Instagram can be a positive site if it is interacted with in small doses and used for healthy and inter-personal relationships. In addition, when Instagram becomes politically constructive, it is important to notice because “in our times people are often willing to make drastic changes in the way they live to accord with technological innovation at the same time they would resist similar kinds of changes justified on political grounds” (Winner, 135). So don’t go changing yourself just because there are cool pictures Instagram, uniqueness is better than fitting into Western Idealism (and often