instagram and identity

Our research topic focuses on the effects the integration of the social media platform Instagram has had on the expression of identity, more specifically, with the introduction of new features such as close friends’ stories, switching easily between multiple accounts, and the ability to mute other people’s stories. Another aspect that we will be looking at is the prevalent use of “finstagrams” (aka finsta’s). Our survey included questions about people’s prior knowledge about Instagram, user demographics, how much users used Instagram, and how they used their finsta’s. The link can be found here.

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survey results

64 respondents in total

68.75% consider North America/Central America/Europe to be home
25% consider Asia to be home
6.25% consider both North America and Asia to be home

“do you have a ‘finsta’?”

50% of respondents answered “yes”

rinstas vs finstas

frequency of posting

25% of ‘finsta’-users reported posting several times a week to that account
3.2% of ‘rinsta’-users reported posting several times a week to that account

“How frequently do you post stories?”

24.5% of respondents post several times a week
21.3% of respondents post about once a week
16.4% of respondents post every few months or less frequently

“How frequently do you post photos?”

40.6% of respondents post every few months or less frequently
32.2% of respondents post about once a week

“How often do you post to the close friends feature?”

Across both finstas and rinstas, the general trend is that most users do not utilize the close friends features. Of those who do, they use it very infrequently.

53.12% of those who have finstas do not have a close friends list
60% of these users only post every few months or less frequently
53% of respondents do not have a close friends list
57% of respondents who do have one post every few months or less frequently

final project decisions

We decided to narrow down our questions to focus on how personal identities have been expressed on Instagram and how they have changed over time. Our survey respondents expressed the most interest in how users identities through instagram and the finstagram’s role in shaping identities. We decided to focus on these questions:

How are personal identities shaped and expressed in Instagram?
How has this changed over time?
To what extent are we more comfortable blurring the lines of reality and fantasy online?
How did these features (close friends stories, switching accounts, muting stories) develop/evolve over time?
Were there external pressures for making these changes?

The audience for this website will target the age range of 15-30. We chose this range because the way that people use social media is different for every age group. From our survey, we got the most responses from this age group. It seems this age group most prevalently uses social media. For delivery of the information on our website we will use text and infograhics.