INSTAGRAM REDESIGN
Brody Lycan
INTRO
A couple decades into the age of the internet, we are truly starting to see some of the effects the newest technologies are having on human beings. The creation of the internet allowed for billions of individuals to access a web of data, which was eventually all connected by google. Later on, the creation of social media came along, changing how we used the internet completely. At first social media seemed harmless, early forms like Myspace and Facebook were incredible new web applications which allowed users to recover old lost connections with friends from years in the past. Later on apps like Instagram and Snapchat developed, and soon became widely popular. At first, neither of these seemed very malicious, but over time things started to change and all these companies would reveal their true intentions.
Now, nearing the end of 2019, it’s obvious how much impact social media has had on our lives, and how much control it has over most of the population. This entire time Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat have been modifying their apps to make them more engaging, more addicting, and more time consuming. They created what’s called an “attention economy” where these companies success and revenue is now reliant on their abilities to keep us addicted to their product. At first, this didn’t seem like such a bad thing for most humans, and we didn’t consider the possible flaws these companies may have in the long run. Now it is evident, that there are many flaws from these apps. I’m specifically going to focus on Instagram and create a plan to redesign the application to hopefully help solve some of these long term issues.
INSTAGRAM’S ISSUES / CONTEXT
Instagram was created in October 2010 and was intended to be a photo sharing platform. The creators Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger wanted it to be simple, solely including features which allowed commenting and liking of the photos shared by others. At first, Instagram stayed pretty true to this idea, and it was really just used to share photos you thought were cool. Soon instagram had everyone on board, and the liking system became much more addictive. Every time you choose to post a photo, you’ll receive a certain amount of likes, dependent on the amount of followers you have. Receiving these likes causes us to have a dopamine rush, which makes us feel really good, and tends to be addictive. So many people became addicted to trying to acquire more followers, to therefore acquire more likes. What’s really harmful about this application is that chase for followers wasn’t limited to the internet. It forced people to create an alternate persona or tweak their personality in real life just to match their personality they created to receive more likes. This chase for followers and likes was promoted by the layout of instagram, with your followers and how many people you are following headlining your profile in bold. It created a massive culture of comparison within my generation. Instagram has become a rating system which is so widespread it is able to determine popularity. From my experience, I have seen the majority of people my age get roped in by this addiction. I’ve seen people spend money on followers, and I’ve seen people manipulate the shape of their body in a photograph for likes. What really tells how deep this issue is embedded, is the fact that all these behavior changes I’ve witnessed from others, are the most prominent amongst the youth. Our average age limit for allowing kids access to these addictions does not make much sense when comparing the age development slows down in kids. The fact that these kids are getting so addicted to these behaviors so early on is starting to show some really negative effects.
This application is creating a popularity contest, and things don’t always look so bright for the people who aren’t at the top of that contest. It became a constant reminder making people believe they had no friends, or no one there for them. Even for the people at the top, things aren’t always so bright. I’ve seen some of my friends change and become a completely different person for Instagram. I’ve also seen those same people realize what they’d become and go through some really tough times because of that. Issues of self reflection our brains weren’t made to process at a young age.
Instagram has also implemented features like explore and the infinite scroll to keep you entertained for as long as possible. They both use profiles the app has created on you to operate an algorithm which can predict your behaviors and figure out under the specific circumstances of that moment what will keep you addicted the longest. This is a large problem that exists within all social media today and needs to be fixed immediately. All the companies running the apps own our data and are able to manipulate what we see in order to persuade us to do certain things or act certain ways. This can be used at a governmental scale to help promote a certain candidate or make people think certain things about a certain person.
Humane Tech created a chart to look at how user friendly a product is by looking at it in 6 categories: Emotional ,Attention, Sensemaking, Decision-Making, Social Reasoning, and Group Dynamics. The chart looks at all of these aspects and how much the app works to improve those aspects of humanity, it rates the product on the opportunity for improvement in those fields. When I reviewed instagram in its current state using this chart, it had a low opportunity for improvement in all 6 categories.
Looking at Instagram’s history, it’s pretty obvious the company doesn’t have much focus on the wellbeing of the individual. Rather the company is fixated on how they can keep people addicted, so they can keep making money.
WAYS TO SOLVE/REDESIGN IDEAS
The main way I plan on redesigning Instagram is to have more interpersonal connection between individuals to help form communities.
The app is so focused on the individual and usage for selfish reasons. I tried to locate every feature that helps the app do this and break each one down to see how I can change it. I then proposed potential solutions so the app
Change likes and followers
The follow and like features have been instagram’s staple pretty much since it began. The like button allows users to view how many likes a photo has received, and who has liked it. Users are notified when a photo they have posted receives likes, which can be an endless stream of dopamine for people with lots of followers. When a user has X amount of followers, those people will all likely see the users photos when they post them. The followers can also access the users page to view and like photos. The number of followers is also displayed at the top of an instagram profile. This number can be used as a way to compare one person to another, in a sense of popularity. It can be particularly useful for companies looking to advertise, because they can use the pay an individual to promote a product to their following.
I plan on changing the like and follower system up to make it a little more user friendly. Well I’m aware these changes might hurt the business aspect of instagram, my redesign is focused on being completely centered around the well being of the individual. I’d like to make the liking system work in a more two sided way– so when you receive a like from someone, it brings up a typing window to send a message back to them, or perhaps a list of automated responses like “Thanks!”, “How have you been?”, “How’s your day?”, ect. ut I would like to add a feature where you can reply with a photo or video as well, but that becomes problematic with my incentive system I address in the next section. But besides that, I feel like this system will create a more personal interaction with the community, and eliminate some of the selfish aspects of posting photos. Also eliminating the public display of likes per photo, so liking is more focused on interaction than praise. As for followers, I’d like to make that something which isn’t displayed publicly. To maybe keep some aspect of business involvement for the app, perhaps I would implement a feature to request info on someones followers to potentially use them for advertising.
Monitor Infinite Feed
The infinite feed on instagram is a feature which it shares with most of its social media cousins, because it’s one of the main reasons most of social media is so addicting. It makes it so you will get an infinite stream of media which has been filtered through an algorithm using your history on the internet to find exactly what will be most engaging for you at that moment. This is designed to be extremely addictive and keep you engaged with the app for as long as possible.
My solution for the infinite feed is to create some sort of incentive system along with some sort of monitoring system to limit usage. I’d like to make it so users are allowed more time to look through the feed dependent on how many ,and the length of positive responses to other users posts. My hopes are to have some sort of algorithm which can block or censor negative messages being typed in response to photos, and penalize anyone who tries to do that. The system will also do the opposite and reward people who give thoughtful responses more time to use the application before being blocked out. I want to implement warnings as well which pop up and tell you to get physical activity or not get distracted by some task at hand you may be avoiding. I also would remove the algorithm which keeps users entertained the longest and base the algorithm on who you would respond best to or who you’d connect with the most.
Grouping of Interests
Right now, Instagram has a really good system, which Facebook and Twitter also use to sort information of similar context. The system is through hashtags (#), and can be used as a way to label certain images under certain categories, and also search for images which all fall under those categories. This system works really well for helping you locate things of similar context, but doesn’t focus on connecting those things, and rather focuses on the individual’s ability to access those things. I think it’s particularly important we focus on using the community to help combat the issues of depression and anxiety, social media is having on society especially the younger generations. An article I read talks about Kyle Vanhemert and the movements he’s making to create an app which is focuses on the interaction of communities to help people feel less alone. The app uses crowdsourcing to combat depression, something which no current social media really tries to do, and I’d like to implement a similar feature into my redesign to help Instagram combat these negative side effects.
I plan on changing the hashtag system so it connects people from certain communities. When using this new system you will search through hashtags just like the old system, but instead of liking photos once you’re looking at some you will be able to contact whoever you are stumbling upon. There will be different automated messages when users are looking at photos through this method, they will be more along the lines of “Awesome! I love to do ____ too!”, or “I’d like to learn more about how you do this!”. I’d hope to filter this system in the same way I plan to filter my proposed messaging system as an alternative to liking. When you do this, it will add them to a community sidebar feature which keeps the profile and messages from that individual under that category. This will make it so users will be able to have communal interaction within certain communities of different contexts.
Closing Statement
The changes I propose to implement will remove the idea of Instagram being an app focused around you, and replace it with a place where communal interaction is more possible, and positivity is much more present. Well this may eliminate some of the factors which people solely use it for, I think it will be overall much better for the health and well being of the individual. I also don’t think it’s a bad thing that these changes may eliminate the business aspects of instagram, because I think there should be a seperation between a business and the self to lessen the likelihood of people becoming self obsessed. Ultimately I want this redesign to make the app completely focused on interactions with others and not on making money or any other reasons people may use it currently.
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