Intriguing, funny piece. I think it jumps to a few unwarranted conclusions, and does a bit of three-card monte here and there, but otherwise is well composed and thought provoking.
I have a 16-year-old sister who is big into Instagram. I don't do Facebook or Instagram or whatever, and the only reason I begrudgingly keep my Twitter account up is for publicity's sake as I hope to land a big publishing deal one day. I don't get to see my sister often since I'm away at school and all but this summer I've had a chance to speak with her about all of this social media use. I have another little sister who is 18 and like my baby sister she is also big into Facebook, Twitter, and a myriad of other social networks. It's funny seeing this article pop up because this very subject came up not too long ago when I was speaking with both of my sisters about why they are so invested in their social networks and how it makes them feel. They both echoed what this article says--that using Facebook and Instagram is a kind of masochistic way to spend their time. Creeping on exes, sifting through everyone's problems that they purposefully made public, browsing through vacation photos of friends and enemies and 'frenemies'... So I asked them why? Why even participate in it? The answer was, for them, that all of this drama that happens online is the same exact stuff that would be going on in real life. It's just now, they get to enjoy all of that juicy gossip about which couples are on, who has broken up, whose life sucks, who they're jealous of, who is pregnant, all from the comfort of their own homes at their complete leisure. They both said they felt guilty and stupid that they cared so much about such petty things, but I've never held it against them... They're teenage girls, what could you expect? I guess these social networks and all of the depression and masochism and whatever else that comes with it is a product of our own social norms, not the cause of them.
So it's got all the appeal of US magazine, except the stars of the gossip really are us? Crowd-sourced scuttlebutt. I guess it really does have a grim kind of brilliance to it. I also guess that if you're going to focus on the dirt in "real life," it makes sense you'd do so in the virtual panopticon too. And I guess I can even see the appeal. But I guess I'd liken it to junk food, where the flavors are intense, the pleasure is short-lived, the after effects are miserable, and the long term nourishment value is sub-zero. You can't gorge on this stuff and love what is good in life for long.
I don't use facebook (though I have an account), but I did start using instagram in an ancillary way because my wife has a brand page. I go on there to check out her posts or post on behalf of the brand. We're kind of in this whole sub ecosystem of brands following other brands and owners/managers, and it's actually pretty fun/interesting/inspiring/useful from that perspective. The purely visual nature of it is a large component of this (for me anyway). Despite this, I have struggled to upload more than 6 pics or so over two years to my personal Instagram account. It's like pulling teeth. It's weird because I really do find the business/brand-page Instagram account very compelling, but my personal account I just can't get myself to care no matter what I do.
this is really good, i think. why would we need to live in facebook if we're already living in ... life? it would be double the work, zero payoff, unless we're posturing to compensate for/fabricate identity. in which case, consult another sheet of problems. advertising and sharing a business/service in a web-based platform, on the other hand: nothing would make more sense. following someone's developing creative endeavors vs. following his/her episodic and awkwardly strung together self-portrait are two very different things indeed.