Co-written with Nanda Nayak
Within 15 minutes, Sophomore Sarah Wood’s photo had 10 likes. Two hours later, it had amassed 100 more. Instagram is Wood’s favorite social media platform by far. Without the unnecessary status updates and articles that so often clutter her Facebook and Twitter feeds, Wood can focus on what really matters: her friends’ pictures.
It was one of these friends that first introduced Wood to Instagram. At first, she struggled to use the app, but now with almost a hundred posts, she’s become skilled in manipulating light and playing with angles to create an “Instagram worthy” photo.
“I like that you’re able to post pictures and get inspiration from other people’s photography and use that as your own,” Wood said. “It’s also just fun to see what your friends are up to.”
For Wood, Instagram holds snapshots of her daily life, her feed dotted with group pictures with other cheerleaders and some of her own selfies.
“I like keeping the memories and seeing how I’ve grown and how my friends and I look throughout the years,” Wood said.
Since Wood uses Instagram mainly for entertainment and interaction with some of her closer friends, she relies on Facebook to communicate with her classmates. On Facebook, Wood often asks her peers questions about homework and takes part in course discussion groups.
“The main reason I use Facebook is for school, so I don’t see it as a social, entertaining website,” Wood said.
Similarly, senior Puja Trivedi only uses Facebook for academic purposes, but she also views the site as a place to hang out. However, with the constant stream of status updates, news articles and clickbaits, it’s hard to focus on her friends. Instead, she turns to Instagram for her social needs.
“I found Facebook really busy,” Trivedi said. “There’s just way too much stuff on there, whereas on Instagram, it’s just pictures and you don’t need to scroll through a whole bunch of other stuff to get there.”
Trivedi prefers Instagram because of its personal touch. On her own account she follows the Instagrams of several fitness and YouTube personas from which she draws her inspiration. Overall, however, she uploads personal pictures as a means of connecting with faraway friends.
Though Sophomore Kyanna Deborahlynn has an Instagram, she primarily uses a different visual platform — Snapchat. Deborahlynn takes advantage of the story feature on Snapchat, where users can highlight moments of their day, something not available on Instagram.
“I always have really long stories and people are either really annoyed by it or they love it,” Deborahlynn said, with a laugh. “I’m either being obnoxious and lip syncing, telling a story or complaining about something that happened.”
Deborahlynn, however, does not use Snapchat solely for social purposes, but also to voice her opinion on current news events, especially those concerning the Black Lives Matter movement. Through her snapchat stories, Deborahlynn expresses her opinion in greater depth and believes it has helped her create a greater understanding of the world.
While social media is meant to be personalized by the user, Deborahlynn prefers to use another social platform, Twitter, for the exact opposite reason— its impersonalization that allows for her to get her opinion across.
There’s a lot of activists accounts on Twitter, and they’re really upfront about getting their point across and standing up for what they believe in. Because that’s a big part of Twitter, it feels easier to share my opinions on Twitter and not worry about how people may react.
Sophomore Kyanna DeborahLynn
Just as Twitter hosts her opinions and thoughts, Deborahlynn’s Tumblr is a manifestation of her mind. In person, she comes off as hyper. While that is a part of her personality, there’s more to her and Tumblr and Twitter allow her to express those parts.
Though all three social media users prefer different platforms, they admit that the different social media sites allow a person to express their true personalities, and act as an outlet for individual creativity.
“Personally, it’s hard for me to express how my mind really works,” Deborahlynn said. “I use Tumblr and Twitter to show [that], because I don’t present myself the way I really am.”
