This is a question I am always mentally stewing over. Instagram is the image sharing platform of our time. It has democratised sharing photographs like nothing before and is available for anyone with internet access to share pictures. That’s huge. As artists flocked to Instagram in it’s early days we found ways to speak to others who enjoyed seeing our output. Sharing content didn’t require much thought and we found online communities and an engaged audience. It was fun.

However, as Instagram grew it changed its user experience design significantly and monetised itself. It started to become increasingly addictive with features that played on people’s insecurities and as more people joined, we became bombarded with digital noise that we not only heard, but that we contributed to. Now, in 2021, Instagram has 1.22 billion users (Statista, State of Digital 2021) and we have become accustomed to an endless trickle of digital comparison as normal life. But the tide is shifting. More people are starting to talk extensively about the ways in which this app is damaging us as a society, how it’s creating a mental health crisis and scraping away at our cognitive ability to concentrate.

Those who are reading this blog are going to be well aware of the glistening lure of Instagram. You probably found this post through this channel where I promoted it. An irony that feels cliche to address but whatever, it’s true and it’s ironic.

Whether we like it or not, we are a generation that are grossly addicted.

Despite the extensive ethical critique that tech giants are facing and the horror of the Black Mirror-esque Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma, social media is here to stay; entrenched into the fabric of our very existence. For many, this tailor made curated realm forms a credible representative of the self. When people meet us we introduce ourselves and it is likely we then introduce them to our IG handle. You can find “me” here.

It is a digital world that in the current “lockdown” can even supersede physical reality. The lines between both have become blurred to the point that for many, social media platforms are an extension of, and not separate to, real life. And with most of us oscillating between sharing and not sharing, and caring and not caring, the navigation of this world is complicated.