Instagram, the well-known social media and social networking platform that allows users to share photographs, videos, and other images from their smart phones or other devices is ten years old in October 2020. Its first incarnation was as an application or “app” on Apple devices which run the iOS system.
It was eventually made available for all kinds of operating systems. It was bought by the more general social networking platform Facebook in April 2012. The system can be by turns whimsical, amusing, frustrating, trivial, and even worrying, depending on perspective, personal ethics, and politics. But, at heart, it is essentially a way for hundreds of millions of people to share images with each other, publicly or to some extent privately.
Researchers in South Korea have looked closely at how Instagram use is related to affluence estimates, materialism, and self-esteem. Writing in the International Journal of Mobile Communications, they allude to a “glamourous world” and have used cultivation theory to examine in what ways Instagram use related to various personal characteristics, positively or negatively.
Yoori Hwang of the Department of Digital Media at Myongji University and Se-Hoon Jeong of the School of Media and Communication at Korea University both in Seoul, carried out an online survey of 530 adult users in their country. The team found that Instagram use is positively related to affluence estimates and materialistic values. Additionally, it was indirectly related to lower self-esteem mediated by greater materialistic beliefs.
The team alludes to the study putting Instagram into a cultural context. They also say it points out that there is perhaps a need for greater literacy education regarding social networking sites. Such education might help address the potentially damaging, negative effects on self-esteem of using certain digital tools and apps.
Hwang, Y. and Jeong, S-H. (2020) ‘The glamorous world: how Instagram use is related to affluence estimates, materialism, and self-esteem’, Int. J. Mobile Communications, Vol. 18, No. 5, pp.559–570.