16 ms·

How Two Years of Instagram Stories Has Altered the Way We Love, Act and Play

61 points by pmcpinto 8y ago

joe_the_user 8y ago
Wow, I merely do Facebook and few of my friends post very many "personal experience" pictures. A few do and it feels like no one gets judged that much. Other corners of the site may have a different ethos. But this seems like a disturbing way to exist.
- babsHeinz 8y ago
  I totally agree. I've got Facebook, which I use very sparsely, and Instagram which I use a bit more often to post images for my closest family and friends. Thus I don't feel a need to post images displaying how "perfect" my life is. They already know what flaws, and what good things, I have in my life, so to try to pretend something else would be plain out weird.
- yesforwhat 8y ago
  Social media is like alcohol, enjoy it for what it is and don't abuse it. If you become hooked don't be surprised when it's a net negative in your life.
  - addicted 8y ago
    I found my withdrawal from social media and alcohol was very similar. The difference is that there is no one tinkering with alcohol’s chemical composition to make sure it is configured just to fit my personal body chemistry. Social media has a bunch of really smart people whose only job is to make it personally addictive to me specifically.
uxhacker 8y ago
It is interesting how the web has become about portraying oneself rather than new ideas. In a way it has become a massive propaganda machine in how wonderful the world is.
- fredsted 8y ago
  I think it's also the reason for all the conspiracy theories that are increasingly running rampant. No matter what you believe, there's someone out there saying it's a lie or it's true, there's no absolute truths anymore; anything is real. As a consequence of that, now that no-one knows what to believe, people are starting to trust personalities like Alex Jones simply because they're appealing or entertaining to listen to. News is just content now. What you believe isn't the truth, it's identity, your tribe, your personality. It doesn't matter if it's true, it just matters that it's in line with the belief of your tribe.
  - uxhacker 8y ago
    Marshall Mcluhan would say that we have moved from hot to a cool media. Going from the mainly text based internet of old to one that is very visual. Hot media is a media of words and sounds and a cool one is that of rich media. Somebody who is good at projecting an image does well in a cool media.
  - elterall 8y ago
    Because CNN and Saddam's weapons of mass destruction are the truth...
    - kurthr 8y ago
      And amusingly you unintentionally provide an example of both!
  - vageli 8y ago
    > News is just content now. What you believe isn't the truth, it's identity, your tribe, your personality. It doesn't matter if it's true, it just matters that it's in line with the belief of your tribe. When was this idealized time when news _wasn't_ content produced for money?
- saiya-jin 8y ago
  but... world is wonderful! just that we're not exposed to its beauty all the time, at least not most of us
erikb 8y ago
I have a hard time understanding what the social aspects of a photo sharing site can be. Until now Instagram also had zero appeal for me, especially with such ideas like that you can only upload pictures from phones.
- vitorbaptistaa 8y ago
  I think there are mainly two aspects: sharing an artistic side, and sharing what's happening in your life. Stories are focused on what's going on with your life. I find it valuable to connect with friends, especially those I don't see often. If I know you've been traveling or got a new job, I can ask you about it. Instead of a generic "Hey, how are you doing?", I can go "How's the new job?". That makes it easier for me to have a small talk, so I connect more with friends, which is a good thing. The problem is overdoing it. And everything is set for us to overdo it. It then stops being "cool, Jane seems to be having a great time, I'm happy for her!" to "everybody is having a blast while I'm stuck in 9-5, my life sucks".
  - lysp 8y ago
    Three aspects - influencers and wannabe influencers trying to gain lots of followers to plug products. So they don't need to get a "real" job, they can just post a few pictures and get paid.
- factsaresacred 8y ago
  It's a window to the world of people you know/admire/like. Facebook, for me, became this staid place where people complained or posted mundane stuff. I open Instagram and I see: - one of my favorite music artists posted a pic from the highest railway in Japan - a gaggle of models I follow are looking fine - some street art from Berlin - motivational story from Gary Vaynerchuck - the hashtag of my favorite city surfaces snaps that give me wunderlist to return There's nothing there to make me rage - no politics, no lame memes, no arguments. Just a steady stream of aesthetically-pleasing photos to make my mind wander for 30 seconds or so.
  - nasredin 8y ago
vitorbaptistaa 8y ago
I brushed it off as a mere novelty when Snapchat came with the idea of ephemeral posts. I was wrong. It really changes our relationship with the posts, which means we share things that we wouldn't share in other way. That's pretty neat, but can be abused easily. The stories are basically turning people into vloggers. Depending on how often you post, you'll be in constantly thinking "should I be recording this?" or "what's the next shot?". This can be really draining for the person and their friends. There are few things that annoy me more than someone recording a video in a bar or a club. Even worse when they use flash. Casey Neistat, of YouTube fame, is a great example of a "serial vlogger", someone that has been vlogging his life for decades. For example, on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfIc944bSJ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfIc944bSJ8 he talks about his girlfriend (now wife). He has footage from 2005 on their first date, hard conversations when they broke up, and (it seems) every highlight of their history. It makes an amazing video, I'd love to be able to rewatch those moments in my life. However, can you imagine living with a friend that's constantly recording their lives (including you)? That's where we are headed...
- EliRivers 8y ago
  I wonder how such a thing would affect people; currently, people change their memories depending on how they feel and what's happened recently and what they hope or expect for the future and how they remembered it the last time (I'm not convinced this is inherently a bad thing). Being unable to do that, being constantly confronted with recorded history differing with our own recollections; what would be the consequences of that?
  - donkeyd 8y ago
    There's at least one Black Mirror episode about this premise. If I remember correctly, some others also touch this. It's worth while to watch a couple episodes. They're not all great, but many are good food for thought if you like to philosophize about the impact of technology on our future.
    - vitorbaptistaa 8y ago
nakedrobot2 8y ago
is this an ad or a genuine piece of journalism?
- mcjiggerlog 8y ago
  Have you actually read it? It's clearly a critique of the feature.
mcjiggerlog 8y ago
I've seen first-hand friends become absolutely obsessed with Instagram Stories. It's really tragic to watch and honestly it just looks so embarassing from the outside. I hate how forced and fake everything is. I used to use Facebook quite heavily myself, but the only "social media" I use now is sharing photos directly to friends/family on Whatsapp and making an effort to chat to/call them every now and then. I honestly feel like I have a much more social life doing that than I ever did using Facebook.
anotheramala 8y ago
As a 41 yr old I am glad I am too old for this.

61 points by pmcpinto 8y ago

Wow, I merely do Facebook and few of my friends post very many "personal experience" pictures. A few do and it feels like no one gets judged that much. Other corners of the site may have a different ethos. But this seems like a disturbing way to exist.

babsHeinz 8y ago
I totally agree. I've got Facebook, which I use very sparsely, and Instagram which I use a bit more often to post images for my closest family and friends. Thus I don't feel a need to post images displaying how "perfect" my life is. They already know what flaws, and what good things, I have in my life, so to try to pretend something else would be plain out weird.
yesforwhat 8y ago
Social media is like alcohol, enjoy it for what it is and don't abuse it. If you become hooked don't be surprised when it's a net negative in your life.
- addicted 8y ago
  I found my withdrawal from social media and alcohol was very similar. The difference is that there is no one tinkering with alcohol’s chemical composition to make sure it is configured just to fit my personal body chemistry. Social media has a bunch of really smart people whose only job is to make it personally addictive to me specifically.

uxhacker 8y ago

It is interesting how the web has become about portraying oneself rather than new ideas. In a way it has become a massive propaganda machine in how wonderful the world is.

fredsted 8y ago
I think it's also the reason for all the conspiracy theories that are increasingly running rampant. No matter what you believe, there's someone out there saying it's a lie or it's true, there's no absolute truths anymore; anything is real. As a consequence of that, now that no-one knows what to believe, people are starting to trust personalities like Alex Jones simply because they're appealing or entertaining to listen to. News is just content now. What you believe isn't the truth, it's identity, your tribe, your personality. It doesn't matter if it's true, it just matters that it's in line with the belief of your tribe.
- uxhacker 8y ago
  Marshall Mcluhan would say that we have moved from hot to a cool media. Going from the mainly text based internet of old to one that is very visual. Hot media is a media of words and sounds and a cool one is that of rich media. Somebody who is good at projecting an image does well in a cool media.
- elterall 8y ago
  Because CNN and Saddam's weapons of mass destruction are the truth...
  - kurthr 8y ago
    And amusingly you unintentionally provide an example of both!
- vageli 8y ago
  > News is just content now. What you believe isn't the truth, it's identity, your tribe, your personality. It doesn't matter if it's true, it just matters that it's in line with the belief of your tribe. When was this idealized time when news _wasn't_ content produced for money?
saiya-jin 8y ago
but... world is wonderful! just that we're not exposed to its beauty all the time, at least not most of us

erikb 8y ago

I have a hard time understanding what the social aspects of a photo sharing site can be. Until now Instagram also had zero appeal for me, especially with such ideas like that you can only upload pictures from phones.

vitorbaptistaa 8y ago
I think there are mainly two aspects: sharing an artistic side, and sharing what's happening in your life. Stories are focused on what's going on with your life. I find it valuable to connect with friends, especially those I don't see often. If I know you've been traveling or got a new job, I can ask you about it. Instead of a generic "Hey, how are you doing?", I can go "How's the new job?". That makes it easier for me to have a small talk, so I connect more with friends, which is a good thing. The problem is overdoing it. And everything is set for us to overdo it. It then stops being "cool, Jane seems to be having a great time, I'm happy for her!" to "everybody is having a blast while I'm stuck in 9-5, my life sucks".
- lysp 8y ago
  Three aspects - influencers and wannabe influencers trying to gain lots of followers to plug products. So they don't need to get a "real" job, they can just post a few pictures and get paid.
factsaresacred 8y ago
It's a window to the world of people you know/admire/like. Facebook, for me, became this staid place where people complained or posted mundane stuff. I open Instagram and I see: - one of my favorite music artists posted a pic from the highest railway in Japan - a gaggle of models I follow are looking fine - some street art from Berlin - motivational story from Gary Vaynerchuck - the hashtag of my favorite city surfaces snaps that give me wunderlist to return There's nothing there to make me rage - no politics, no lame memes, no arguments. Just a steady stream of aesthetically-pleasing photos to make my mind wander for 30 seconds or so.
- nasredin 8y ago

vitorbaptistaa 8y ago

I brushed it off as a mere novelty when Snapchat came with the idea of ephemeral posts. I was wrong. It really changes our relationship with the posts, which means we share things that we wouldn't share in other way. That's pretty neat, but can be abused easily. The stories are basically turning people into vloggers. Depending on how often you post, you'll be in constantly thinking "should I be recording this?" or "what's the next shot?". This can be really draining for the person and their friends. There are few things that annoy me more than someone recording a video in a bar or a club. Even worse when they use flash. Casey Neistat, of YouTube fame, is a great example of a "serial vlogger", someone that has been vlogging his life for decades. For example, on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfIc944bSJ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfIc944bSJ8 he talks about his girlfriend (now wife). He has footage from 2005 on their first date, hard conversations when they broke up, and (it seems) every highlight of their history. It makes an amazing video, I'd love to be able to rewatch those moments in my life. However, can you imagine living with a friend that's constantly recording their lives (including you)? That's where we are headed...

EliRivers 8y ago
I wonder how such a thing would affect people; currently, people change their memories depending on how they feel and what's happened recently and what they hope or expect for the future and how they remembered it the last time (I'm not convinced this is inherently a bad thing). Being unable to do that, being constantly confronted with recorded history differing with our own recollections; what would be the consequences of that?
- donkeyd 8y ago
  There's at least one Black Mirror episode about this premise. If I remember correctly, some others also touch this. It's worth while to watch a couple episodes. They're not all great, but many are good food for thought if you like to philosophize about the impact of technology on our future.
  - vitorbaptistaa 8y ago

nakedrobot2 8y ago

is this an ad or a genuine piece of journalism?

mcjiggerlog 8y ago
Have you actually read it? It's clearly a critique of the feature.

mcjiggerlog 8y ago

I've seen first-hand friends become absolutely obsessed with Instagram Stories. It's really tragic to watch and honestly it just looks so embarassing from the outside. I hate how forced and fake everything is. I used to use Facebook quite heavily myself, but the only "social media" I use now is sharing photos directly to friends/family on Whatsapp and making an effort to chat to/call them every now and then. I honestly feel like I have a much more social life doing that than I ever did using Facebook.

anotheramala 8y ago

As a 41 yr old I am glad I am too old for this.