September 9, 2013 • 37 mins
If you're a millennial with a smart phone, there's a good chance you're on Instagram. Caroline and Cristen chart the brief history of the popular photo filter app, who uses it and what our Instagram feeds say about modern life.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how stup
works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. And for people who follow us
on Twitter at Mom's Stuff Podcast, you got a little
prevideo a couple of weeks ago, and we're gonna be
(00:23):
doing this episode on Instagram that was live live tweeting
some podcast research asking folks what they wanted to know
about Instagram, and a lot of replies were about selfies,
food picks, yoga moms. So even though there hasn't been
a lot of formal research on Instagram, we figured why
(00:48):
not talk about it? Right? Yeah? I mean I I
actually just got on there recently, not too long ago,
and I can't remember. I was just telling Kristin. I
can't remember why what drove me on there, other than
I just felt like, go all right, fine, I'll get
on there and posting pictures. But I've actually gotten kind
of sucked in because I do like the sharing aspect. Yeah,
I'll confess that I am not as Instagram literate as
(01:10):
I should be because I have an account it is private,
but I have a very few photos even in there
because I have an old phone and the camera does
not take crisp, beautiful photos. So I've been telling myself
that once I get a new phone, I've been telling
(01:32):
myself this Poe two years, that I'll get on Instagram
and become an Instagram queen. But maybe this episode is
the catalyst for getting active on Instagram. There you go,
because stuff I've never told you should probably get on Instagram, right,
we probably should get on all of the social media's.
What do you think we would post photos of Caroline?
(01:53):
If stuff I've never told you had an Instagram, we
could post studio selfies. Oh yeah, yeah, research pictures. We're
a researching um pictures of women. I don't know what else.
Photos of your favorite sandwiches. Oh heck yeah, I know,
but I am sort of morally opposed to food pictures.
(02:16):
We're gonna get into food picks. Yeah, so I don't.
If I were to make a great sandwich like I
made this weekend, then I would absolutely post a picture,
but you know, not of my run of the mill
average sandwich. Okay, no, no, PB and J's right on
the sminty Instagram. Well yeah, well we'll post on our
so existing social media's to announce uh if and when
(02:37):
we're going to get on Instagram, will probably be doing
it a sap. Let us know if you want us to,
if you'd even if you even follow us, if you
want to look at our photo. Yeah, I mean you
can follow. I guess they can follow us in the meantime, Yeah, absolutely.
But who founded Instagram? Some geeks, A couple of geeks
stand these guys Kevin's sister m and Mike Krieger out
(02:58):
in San Francisco, who this this really interesting New York
Times article talked about the help they got from people
around them. It's sort of like they were able to
reach out to other people in the tech community. Um,
just because they knew a whole lot of people around
the whole Stanford community. Yeah. And one thing that stood
out to me about the founding of Instagram is how
(03:21):
it's such a snapshot of these kind of bro networks,
for lack of a more formal phrasing, because all of
the people except for one really cited in that New
York Time story, it's all guys, and they're all in
the startup culture. They're all in the Bay Area, and
(03:42):
they hang out together. They drink beer together, they went
to Stanford together, etcetera. And this is how all of
these startups like Instagram are being made. Not to say
that women are not in the mix as well, but
for instance, let me let me just read from the
New York Times. It says, by and large, it's a
network of young men, many who attended Stanford and had
(04:03):
attention of the world's biggest venture capitalists before they even
left campus. Among the set, risk taking is regarded as
a badge of honor. Ideas are disposable. If one doesn't work,
you move on quickly to another. Timing matters. You make
your own luck. Which I feel like that that nugget
right there of moving quickly, taking risks making your own
(04:26):
luck is maybe an example that women could learn from
from more so as well, because we do tend to
be a little more risk averse. Yeah, so jump jump
in there, Jump in there, because you too could make
a billion dollars from Facebook, from your app. Yeah, And
I mean Instagram is a great example of something that
started off as a different incarnation. Um It's started off
(04:47):
as a project kind of like four square, but for pictures,
right exactly. It was an HTML five check in project
for mobile photography. So and I think it was my
Krieger who had the initial idea where he saw what
four square was doing and he liked the idea of
the location based check ins, but he wanted to do
(05:09):
something more with pictures. But then once four square really
started taking off, he's like, we need to focus more
on the photo. And then on October sixth, two thousand ten,
history was made in the Apple Store, right, that's when
Instagram hits the Apple Store and within the first twenty
(05:31):
four hours they have twenty five thousand users, and they
had three hundred thousand by week three, and fast forward
to today, they have over one thirty million users with
over sixteen billion photos uploaded. And it took off so
quickly within the first twenty four hours that they had
(05:54):
to call up a guy that they knew over from
Facebook to help because their server kept ashing. They're like,
we don't know what to do. We've made apparently the
most incredible thing in the world, and our servers can't
keep up because everyone loves posting selfie so much. It's
like the Internet didn't know what it was missing until
October six, two thousand and ten. Um But in analysis
(06:17):
that's been done since that short window of tom I
mean that's we're only we're only in. But analysts would
say that this fits naturally within the progression of how
we use the Internet, particularly women and young adults, right,
I mean, look at Pinterest. We've done an episode on
(06:37):
Pinterest before talking about just this culture of curating online
rather than creating, and how Pinterest is such a women
driven site. Instagram is too, but not quite to the
same degree. So the Pew Center did a breakdown of
who's using it and found that sixteen percent of women
(06:57):
Internet users are on Instagram versus ten percent of male
Internet users, and I was surprised to see that the
gender gap wasn't wider, almost Pinterest sized, because I don't
know about you, Carolin, but I feel like Instagram is
stereotyped as very female centric. I don't know. Maybe it's
(07:19):
because I just got on there recently and hadn't been
paying attention to it, but I didn't really have a
stereotype about it either way. But I also do follow
a pretty even split of men and women online. I
wonder if that idea in my head of been Instagram
being more lady focused is because of the rise of
the selfie, because while guys and girls I'm sure post
(07:42):
equal amounts of selfies. What a guy taking a photo
of himself ever called a selfie? You know? I asked
dude roommate about this last night. Yeah, and he was
so like scornful and dismissive of the idea of the selfie.
He was like, well, that's a girl thing. Girls to that,
and it's really stupid. Guy would never do that. He's like,
the only time I would ever take what you would
(08:03):
call a selfie is if I had like a cool
scar on my face that I got from fighting. I
was like, Okay, you're masculine, so then what it we
call is scarfie? Oh I like it. He In fact,
the puce that I found that age is a much
stronger predictor of Instagram use than gender, with eighteen to
(08:25):
twenty nine year olds comprising the core demo. And we're
just we're just holding on there. Yeah, you and I
and the cord demographic, we're just holding on. We're millennials.
We're in there. Um. And there's an interesting race breakdown
as well. And I think this also holds for Twitter,
in that Instagram is more popular among black and Hispanic
(08:46):
users versus white users, and also income wise, those making
under thirty k are the most likely to use it,
and that probably has to do with the age factor.
We're a lot younger, we're probably not making as much money.
But the fact though that the we're making under thirty
dollars but using Instagram the most. And yet Instagram often
(09:07):
sort of us in a in a status conscious kind
of way of taking pictures of either you know, your
your beautiful face and your cool hair, your shoes, or
your bag or your vacation spot. Right, I mean, I liked,
I do like to post vacation photos. I don't really
want to take pictures of cool clothes or bags because
I don't know if I have any cool closure bags.
(09:28):
But one thing that I did notice, I mean, demographic wise,
is uh, it is also much more likely to be
used by city dwellers versus people in rural areas, which
I wonder what the reason for that is. Maybe there's
just something more appealing about the urban vista with sky
scrapers and sunsets and skylines. There we go urban skylines. Um.
(09:52):
But I wanted to know what kind of stuff people
are posting on Instagram outside of just the basic things
of well selfies and food uh, so we looked at
the most common Instagram tags, which aren't necessarily specific to
the objects, but I thought they were kind of fascinating.
This is as of June. This was reported on by
(10:15):
HuffPo text Brian Hanigman and the number one Instagram tag love,
And I thought that was all cute until I realized
that people probably post love for like things. Also, exactly,
you're just as likely to post love under a picture
of your boyfriend as you are a pair of shoes
or something. Sure not to be totally cynical, No, it's true. Yeah,
(10:39):
love is followed by insta, good Me, TBT, Throwback Thursday,
and cute. So those at least those top five hashtags
do sound at least feminine skewing. They do, they do,
except for I didn't realize what TB he stood for.
(11:00):
So there we go, everyone, I'm learning something right in
front of your ears. Throwback Thursday, that's what we could
post on Instagram. Yeah, I have Sally has so many
baby pictures with me displaying my baby mullet. We could
easily post some Caroline baby mullet pictures on Throwback Thursday.
And I have kindergarten mullet pictures to post, Caroline, let's
just stop recording and get on Instagram right now, all right. Well,
(11:24):
so one thing that did not pop up in the
top five tags on Instagram is food. Food. Food. I
think of all of the negative stereotypes about Instagram, one
of the main ones is what's up with all these
food pictures? Well, you stop posting your food on Instagram.
(11:45):
I think there's even I'm sure there are multiple ones,
but there's even a giant Facebook group with a mean
title about we hate people who post food on Instagram. Yeah,
there is it. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know
what's so impressive about taking pictures of your dinner, uh,
you know, other than maybe if you haven't eaten in
a really long time. Well, I have seen some some
(12:08):
accounts from professional food photographers and cooks, and it's really
pretty and gorgeous. Yes, I agree with you. There. I
take back kind of partially what I said, because I
do follow a chef and I do love seeing his
food pictures. Um, but yeah, I mean in general, man, well,
maybe this this gets to the heart of your myn
for that. According to data from moment Feed, the cheesecake
(12:33):
factory is the number one most instagrammed restaurant. Yeah, I
I rolled real hard at this because cheesecake factories followed
in this list by Applebe's Chilies, and Olive Garden, and
I was like, come on, seriously, And then I thought
about it. I was like, Okay, don't be so judgmental.
These restaurants are all over the country versus like your
little neighborhood bistro that obviously would not be the most
(12:54):
instagrammed place in the country. Yeah. I mean there's one
location of your adorable bistro over this is how many
cheesecake factories. And I will say the portion sizes the
cheesecake factory are incredible. Yes, I would want to take
a picture just to prove how big my pasta portion was.
But some of the research that has been applied to
(13:15):
Instagram has looked at this aspect of snapping pics of
our food, and there was a study published in Psychological
Science which suggested, loosely the instagramming meals might actually have
the benefit of making the food taste better. Right in
the same way that people say, you know, you shouldn't
(13:37):
watch TV at the same time that you eat, or
you know, do another activity while you're eating, you should
focus on your food. Researchers from the University of Minnesota
and Harvard Business School found that rituals enhanced the enjoyment
of consumption because of the greater involvement in this experience
that they prompt. So, like, the study had people, um
(13:58):
like given the rich of breaking a chocolate bar in
a certain way and eating it in a very ritualized
fashion versus just shoving it in your face like I
do when I eat a chocolate bar. And the people
who like had a ritual to it and we're supposed
to like break it here and then eat half and
then do this, they were able to enjoy it more
because it kind of slowed them down. I guess, yeah,
(14:18):
it's delaying that gratification. Um And while the study didn't
look specifically at Instagram, study author Kathleen Divos did tell
having imposed that it seemed like a ritual that could
enhance pleasure from food, But I mean that could be
applied to other things as simple as uh, you know,
growing up in my family, we would bless the food first,
(14:41):
and I remember sitting there and being like, can I
just want to eat? And then of course, you know,
like once I finally got to eat it was maybe
especially delicious, but Instagram could be considered a more tech
savvy type of ritual that you could apply. But instagramming
all of your meals could also accord to some people
be too much of a good thing. Yeah. This is
(15:04):
coming from Dr Valerie Taylor, who told the Canadian Obesity
Summit that obsessively instagram documenting your food could be a
sign of an actual unhealthy and complicated relationship with food.
She talks about how these people aren't taking pictures of
the people there with they're taking them of food, and
it's sort of another way of demonstrating just like we
talked about in our foodie episodes and all that stuff,
(15:26):
foods elevated importance and our lives more so than like hobbies.
Now we have food. Yeah. Well, while food definitely tends
to polarize people on Instagram in terms of whether they're
totally for it or like totally against it, one of
the most controversial topics that's come up in terms of
(15:48):
Instagram are images of mom's breastfeeding on there, and a
lot of people may have seen an image that went
viral from breastfeeding yoga mom. Her user name is a
daughter of the sun. Yeah, and she had a picture
of her doing a headstand naked and her child I
(16:11):
believe was her daughter, was breastfeeding. All of this was
going on at the same time. I'm just impressed with
her balance. I feel like that's too much for my
brain to handle doing all the same time. So anyway,
this was a picture from it. Like Kristen said, it
went viral and as a result, Instagram disabled her account. Yeah,
and this isn't the first time that Instagram has run
into issues taking down or censoring pictures of moms breastfeeding,
(16:35):
which has led to lots of conversations about well, hey,
you know, what's what's so wrong with women exposing their
breast in this way? It's not sexualized their breastfeeding. Facebook
has had similar issues as well. Also Tumbler and people
are upset that Instagram has taken down Daughter of the Son.
There's even a mini campaign to get them to reactivate
(16:59):
her account. And I have a feeling that Kevin's sistrom
and Mike Creager, who founded Instagram, probably never thought they
were going to have to outline a breastfeeding policy on Instagram.
But this is what it is. Uh Instagram's policy on
breastfeeding is we agree that breastfeeding is natural and beautiful,
and we're glad to know that it's important for mothers
(17:20):
to share their experiences with others on Instagram. The vast
majority of these photos are compliant with our policies. Photos
that show a fully exposed breast where the child is
not actively engaged in nursing, do violate our community guidelines.
These policies are based on the same standards which applied
to television in print media. Well, the thing about that,
(17:40):
like people were arguing, Okay, well her breast wasn't showing
and she was actively engaged in breastfeeding. However, they do
have a new nudity policy. So but I mean it's
like the side, it's a profile shot where you see
the side of her her bottom from her bottom bom uh,
And don't it's not like you see her expose vagina
(18:02):
or anything like that. I mean, God forbid vagina. Um.
So yeah, I want to know from from listeners whether
or not you think that it's cool to crackdown on
breastfeeding photos or if it's like, come on, can we
just get over this fear of the breast? Well, those
were a lot of the comments. That was the split
(18:23):
kind of on the story talking about this, because it
seemed like people were either get over it, who cares?
Like breastfeeding is natural? What are you so worked up about?
And other people who were like, she's an exhibitionist. You know,
she wants to post all these naked photos and they're
titillating and she just wants attention. But it wasn't when
I clicked through a gallery of a lot of her
(18:44):
photos and they were gorgeous. You live in Hawaii with
her family on this commune, and a lot of them
were very scenic and interesting and kind of made me
want to go live in a hippie commune and but
only like yeah, exactly. Um. But speaking of the fact
though that she was doing a yoga headstand, one thing
(19:06):
I was surprised to see was how intense of a
yoga community is on Instagram. These yoga folks have hundreds
of thousands of followers, to the point that there was
a New York Times trend piece that came out not
too long about this right, and it gives a whole
lot of guidelines, like if you're going to take these
(19:27):
pictures like you know, it was asking all of these
Instagram yoga people what makes them so successful on the site,
And a lot of it has to do with framing.
Don't have your dirty dishes in the background, have a nice,
peaceful background where some fancy s fancy leggings. Um. You know,
one woman was saying that she sets her fancy camera
to take pictures every two seconds as she's going through poses,
(19:51):
and the pictures were gorgeous. The ones that the New
York Times had pulled for the piece were incredible. Um.
But they're are some who would say that yoga is about,
you know, cultivating yourself away from the ego, the concept
of the ego, and isn't trying to amass hundreds of
(20:12):
thousands of followers on Instagram by putting on mermaid leggings
and doing incredible headstands violating those principles. Yeah, and you
know what, that was brought up in that story and
it was never really answered, which I thought was interesting
because they put that question to some of the people
and they were like, oh, well, you know, legging. Well,
(20:33):
it's I mean, I think for the breastfeeding issue and
for the yoga stuff and even for food too. Um,
it's kind of cool to see how Instagram is exposing
what we're comfortable with seeing, and we're not comfortable with
seeing what seems to violate our norms in like very
everyday kinds of ways. Like normally, like if you and
(20:54):
I were walking past, uh, you know, a table of
people eating lunch and we saw their food, we wouldn't
like put it away, but we had a room. Yeah,
but we don't want to see a photo of that.
What's the difference. Well, I mean, I think it's the
same thing with selfies. You know, like I think you're
a very lovely person sitting across from me, but if
(21:15):
I see you posting pictures of yourself every five minutes
on Facebook, I'm gonna be like, Kristen, cut it out.
Enough of those selfies. Uh, yeah, we got to talk
about the selfies. Selfie was coined on Flicker actually and
popped up on my Space in two thousand four, So
selfie's been around in our vernacular for a long time,
(21:36):
but only recently has the online Oxford English Dictionary adopted it.
Shaking my head, you are shaking your head, just shaking
my head. I just you know, just because people say words, well,
I mean to be fair. The O. E. D. Also
is including denim on denim and cake pops and there editions.
(21:57):
So look, stop trying to make fetch happen? Okay anyway,
um So, as more than twenty three million photos with
the selfie tag had been uploaded and seventy million photos
were tagged me and some of course, we're saying this
is just an example of millennial narcissism, pure and simple.
(22:22):
I feel like if you pick up any trend piece
written about millennials, you're gonna see a mention of Instagram
and selfies, saying these people clearly are obsessed with themselves
because they can't stop taking images of themselves. But I
will say, in the defense of the selfie in the
front facing camera for someone who is simply not very photogenic,
(22:44):
I'm not saying like I'm a troll. I'm just saying,
like cameras don't always capture my my best angles and
being able to manipulate and find precisely where you look
the best, I mean, yeah, I take a picture, sure. Yeah. Plus,
Mindy Kaling has the whole chapter in her in her
book about it. It's not selfie, she pro selfie. Oh
my god. Yeah, it's like her she was basically talking
(23:05):
about how our entire black Berry is filled with selfies
and how she uses it not only just to take
pictures of herself willy nilly, but also like check her makeup,
how do I look in glasses? How do I look smiling?
You know, it's my hair, Okay, But then she doesn't
delete them, and it's kind of silly. Well, you could
argue that maybe the ability to take a perfect selfie
is good for girls because it allows us to maybe
(23:27):
more easily find our own beauty. I'm going on a limb. Yeah,
you're you're out on a limb. But see, like what,
I don't know. I am trying not to be I'm
trying not to be super judgmental about people who post
NonStop selfies, Like what is what is up with that
(23:47):
sense of selfie? Yeah, like fifteen a day or something
crazy like that. What's going on? I'm not sure. I mean,
Pamela Rutledge has a more positive outlook on all of
these selfies are being posted. She's the director of the
Media's Psychology Research Center, and she was talking to the
Christian Science Monitor about this, and she said that selfies
(24:09):
are simply democratizing the quote unquote once snooty practice of
self portraiture, and she's like, you know what, Yeah, we
see a lot of selfies, but selfies have been going
on ever since the mirror was invented in the fifteenth century,
and it became a lot easier for people to paint
self portraits. So I don't know about that because I'm
(24:29):
kind of looking at it from the opposite direction like
she is saying, it's it's not a negative thing, you
know that it's democratizing something that used to be just
in the upper echelons. But I'm looking at it as no,
we're all narcissistic and we all always have been, and
now we just have an easier way to capture photos
of ourselves or images of ourselves well, and to post
(24:52):
those images and to select the perfect image for that.
There was actually to study, uh that is one of
the only studies looking specifically at Instagram, looking at an
application of Instagram, and the methodology was a little limited,
I'll say, to extrapolate too many results from it, but
(25:12):
it came out in April out of Sweden's University of Goldenburg,
and what the researchers did was look at how people
used Instagram when they were visiting a natural history museum,
so okay um, And they concluded that people put a
lot of time and effort into the Instagram pictures that
(25:34):
they upload that it wasn't just a lot of kind
of vapid selfie photos, but they were really going through
and creating and curating the best possible photo. But also,
I mean you have to think about it. These are
you know, it's a self selected group of people who
are going to a natural history museum, and probably natural
(25:54):
history museums are not don't lend themselves as well to
selfies as say where where's a place, as a as
a party, as a cool party, as a rooftop party
in Brooklyn. Well, yeah, I mean the whole putting a
lot of time into it. Also, you've got to think
about what is the motivation for that. You want to
(26:15):
post good pictures because you want people to click like
and comment and so that other people can see that
their friends liked your pictures, so that they can start
following you. Well, and you want to just look good
to the world. It's all. It's a new facet and
well not so new facet now of this constant self
presentation that we have to maintain which I personally find
(26:37):
exhausting on my On my personal Facebook account, I don't Hey,
I don't post that much, and I really don't post
many photos because it just I don't know, it's so much.
It is a lot. I prefer to use Facebook. I
did post vacation photos because of course, but um, I
I used it mainly to post links about things I'm
interested in. Well, Caroline with those photos of vacation for instance,
(27:01):
all right, and I'm sure did you instagram some to
share a couple. Yeah, Vaca photos very common on Instagram.
A lot of times. The stuff that we're going to
see on Instagram, because it's image based, are really you know,
it's really portraying the best of our lives. And so
some research is now looking into, well, what is the
(27:21):
impact of consuming Instagram? Not like, what does it mean
when we're taking all these selfies? But what does looking
all these selfies? What is me seeing your photo of
you on the beach due to me when I'm sitting
in my cubicle. Um, Because there's been a ton of
research now on the impact of consuming Facebook, and a
(27:43):
lot of it is negative, saying that it provokes jealousy
and depression and feelings of isolation because we are curating
how our lives look to the world, usually in the
best possible light. So what about Instagram. Well, you know,
when I was reading this, and I had been looking
at some of the studies on Facebook and just thinking,
you know, this is so I don't really feel that
way about Facebook. I don't feel like I'm missing the
(28:06):
party or something when I look at Facebook. But then
when I was looking at the Slate article that said
quote Instagram distills the most crazy making aspects of the
Facebook experience, I was like, bingo, Because, like we said,
people post really beautiful pictures on Instagram. They do put
a lot of time and effort into it. And so
some of the people I'm following, you know, I don't
(28:26):
even know them. They're traveling the world and they're posting
pictures of like Buddhist temples and wherever they're they are.
You know, I'm like, oh, man, I guess I'll just
go to work today and send traffic again. Well, even
if someone's not traveling around, thanks to the filters, Instagram
really can make the ordinary look extraordinary exactly. This podcast
(28:47):
is brought to you by Instagram. Instagram if you'd like
to send me that check. Um, but really, I mean,
you can we could take we could make our podcast
studio look so cool. I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure there's
a filter for that. It's like the Nashville one maybe
on Nashville or Kelvin. I'm sure yeah. Um, but so.
Hanna Krasnova of Humble University in Berlin co authored a
(29:10):
study on Facebook and those envy spirals, and she talked
about how um photos can provoke immediate social comparison and
that can make you feel inferior. And you know, whereas
I might just be posting links on Facebook about issues
or news stories I'm interested in, you know, she's saying
news stories don't promote envy. That's where those pictures come in.
(29:33):
And Cataline Atma of the Department of Communication Arts at
the University of Wisconsin Madison has also looked into Facebook
and um how it affects our self esteem, and she
told Slate uh that the photographs, likes, and comments are
the aspects of the Facebook experience that are the most
important in driving the self esteem effects. And so when
(29:55):
you isolate all that down kind of like you were saying,
the way that instag Graham does, then Yeah, you're probably
gonna see some very similar results in terms of Instagram
provoking not so positive self esteem. Yeah, I don't know. Like,
there's this one guy I follow who posts pictures of
(30:17):
his beautiful life and they're like in all these far
flong locations that I was just thinking last night, like
I need to stop following this guy, Like his life
looks too amazing. I can't even handle it well. Socialist
psychologist Sarah J. Gervais wrote over at Psychology Today that
she she sees all of the selfies that people post,
(30:41):
all of the diversity of the actual faces and bodies
that you see on Instagram. Maybe, maybe Caroline is not
that you need to unfollow those people, but just follow
more people to provide a more diverse feed, because she says,
this is actually all going to be good for our
body image because it showcases diversity. Right instead of only
(31:02):
having like Glamour or Vogue to flip through where everybody's
airbrushed and in designer clothes and looking amazing, but only
looking like kind of one kind of amazing. Um, she
is saying that, you know, Instagram, even if we are
trying to present the best picture to the world, Instagram
does give you a more diverse picture of humanity kind of.
And she also likes how it does give a glimpse
(31:24):
into what she calls the makings of people's everyday lives.
She says, we get a sense of those things that
make the everyday extraordinary, things that inspire us, peak our curiosity,
deeply touch us and make us smile. But I do
think there's that fine line between all of those things
that are incredible and inspire us in the everyday working
to other people's lives, and how we internalize that and
(31:47):
compare it to the shortcomings perceived or otherwise in our
own lives. Yeah, and you also don't want to be
too much of a stalker, no, although it can be
hard to also not not do that as well. So
from what we know today, which is not a lot,
we we know who uses Instagram, We know the kinds
(32:07):
of things that are on Instagram. We know that people
love posting pictures of themselves and food and yoga poses.
What do you think? What's your take? Well, you know,
as somebody who's new to Instagram, I I do like
it a lot. I think it's great. I like keeping
up with not only what people in my community are doing,
but what world travelers are doing and looking at all.
(32:28):
They're awesome pictures. But I think we should start a movement, Kristen.
I think instead of food pictures and selfies, we need
to come up with something else. What is something else
that we can obsessively post pictures about. You mean in
terms of on the more inspirational front. You know how
tumbler has all and and pinterest as all those inspirational
(32:51):
quotes that are everywhere will be the Instagram real world
imagery version of that. I don't know, but I have
star did uh Like? There's another app. There's an Instagram
related app called overgram where you can put texts in
nice fonts over your images. And I've started putting Whitney
Houston lyrics on top of my inspirational looking sunset photos. Well,
(33:14):
it sounds like you're going to be managing the new stuff.
I've never told you Instagram, I'm so on it. Well,
we want to hear from you. Now. What do you
think about Instagram? Do you do you use it? Do
you like it? Do you loath it? Let us know
all of your thoughts. Mom. Stuff at Discovery dot com
is where you can send your letters and if there
was an aspect of Instagram that we didn't talk about,
(33:36):
because it would have been impossible to talk about every
single genre of Instagram photo. Let us know if there's
been one that's really piqued your interest, and of course,
if you want us to get on Instagram, let us know. Now.
Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is where you can
send your emails. You can also find us on Facebook
and follow us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. And
(33:56):
we've got a couple of letters to read when we
come back, and now actually our letters. I have a
letter here from Heather subject line getting pregnant over thirty
five question Mark in response to our fertility episode. She says,
I'm so sad that waiting for Mr Wright was never
mentioned as a reason for delaying pregnancy. I know several
(34:17):
over thirty five year old women who would love to
find the guy, get married and have babies. They even
feel a bit despondent at times and think they may
never get married and have a baby. I'm so tired
of all the articles talking about how women are delaying
having babies to work on their careers. I myself finally
met the right guy at thirty four, waited for him
to finish grad school, got married at thirty eight, pregnant
(34:38):
at thirty nine, and finally had a baby at forty.
Trust me, I would have been ready at twenty five.
I think most women know they can have a career
and a baby, but most women do not want to
use a sperm downer and be a single mom. So
thanks for your story, Heather, And I've got an email
here from Joanna also in response to that episode on
(34:58):
getting pregnant after at their five. But um, it's actually
about miscarriage, which was something that we mentioned that we
need to do an episode on, and she said this
past May, I lost my daughter when I was twenty
two weeks pregnant. I have been blessed have a number
of women in my life who have experienced pregnancy or
early infant deaths, so they understand. However, talking to other
women online, I realized that a lot of people don't
(35:20):
have that kind of support. I just feel that people
who have had a loss may not know where to
turn to for support. Also, other people may not know
how to respond. So the worst is when people don't
acknowledge the loss at all. Some come in comments that
people who are trying to help say that are actually hurtful.
Include your baby would have been disabled. Be grateful for
the children you have. It was God's plan, God need
(35:44):
another angel. Don't say you will make a good mom someday.
I'm a mom now I have experienced the type of
pain that many moms will never experience. People also need
to understand that seeing other pregnant people, babies and children
may be hard, and to not be upset if we
can't attend baby showers or birthdays. Things you can do
send a card, opfer to spend time with us, let
(36:05):
us cry, ask about our babies, remember us on Mother's
Day or due date in the date of our loss.
Help us connect to other people who have experienced a loss.
Sorry for such a long email. If you really enjoy
your show and hope you do an episode on miscarriages.
So thank you Joanna for um that candid letter, and
we absolutely will do an episode on miscarriage because I'm
(36:27):
sure that a lot of listeners, both women and men,
can relate to that topic. So if you have a
topic you'd like to request, or just want to send
us a shout out, you can email us mom Stuff
at Discovery dot com. You can also find us on
Facebook or follow us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast,
and you can follow us on Tumbler as well to
(36:47):
keep up with us during the week where at stuff
mom Never told You dot tumbler dot com, and of
course you can watch us on YouTube as well where
at YouTube dot com, slash stuff Mom Never Told You,
and don't forget to subscribe for more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is It How staff Works dot com.
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how stup
works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. And for people who follow us
on Twitter at Mom's Stuff Podcast, you got a little
prevideo a couple of weeks ago, and we're gonna be
(00:23):
doing this episode on Instagram that was live live tweeting
some podcast research asking folks what they wanted to know
about Instagram, and a lot of replies were about selfies,
food picks, yoga moms. So even though there hasn't been
a lot of formal research on Instagram, we figured why
(00:48):
not talk about it? Right? Yeah? I mean I I
actually just got on there recently, not too long ago,
and I can't remember. I was just telling Kristin. I
can't remember why what drove me on there, other than
I just felt like, go all right, fine, I'll get
on there and posting pictures. But I've actually gotten kind
of sucked in because I do like the sharing aspect. Yeah,
I'll confess that I am not as Instagram literate as
(01:10):
I should be because I have an account it is private,
but I have a very few photos even in there
because I have an old phone and the camera does
not take crisp, beautiful photos. So I've been telling myself
that once I get a new phone, I've been telling
(01:32):
myself this Poe two years, that I'll get on Instagram
and become an Instagram queen. But maybe this episode is
the catalyst for getting active on Instagram. There you go,
because stuff I've never told you should probably get on Instagram, right,
we probably should get on all of the social media's.
What do you think we would post photos of Caroline?
(01:53):
If stuff I've never told you had an Instagram, we
could post studio selfies. Oh yeah, yeah, research pictures. We're
a researching um pictures of women. I don't know what else.
Photos of your favorite sandwiches. Oh heck yeah, I know,
but I am sort of morally opposed to food pictures.
(02:16):
We're gonna get into food picks. Yeah, so I don't.
If I were to make a great sandwich like I
made this weekend, then I would absolutely post a picture,
but you know, not of my run of the mill
average sandwich. Okay, no, no, PB and J's right on
the sminty Instagram. Well yeah, well we'll post on our
so existing social media's to announce uh if and when
(02:37):
we're going to get on Instagram, will probably be doing
it a sap. Let us know if you want us to,
if you'd even if you even follow us, if you
want to look at our photo. Yeah, I mean you
can follow. I guess they can follow us in the meantime, Yeah, absolutely.
But who founded Instagram? Some geeks, A couple of geeks
stand these guys Kevin's sister m and Mike Krieger out
(02:58):
in San Francisco, who this this really interesting New York
Times article talked about the help they got from people
around them. It's sort of like they were able to
reach out to other people in the tech community. Um,
just because they knew a whole lot of people around
the whole Stanford community. Yeah. And one thing that stood
out to me about the founding of Instagram is how
(03:21):
it's such a snapshot of these kind of bro networks,
for lack of a more formal phrasing, because all of
the people except for one really cited in that New
York Time story, it's all guys, and they're all in
the startup culture. They're all in the Bay Area, and
(03:42):
they hang out together. They drink beer together, they went
to Stanford together, etcetera. And this is how all of
these startups like Instagram are being made. Not to say
that women are not in the mix as well, but
for instance, let me let me just read from the
New York Times. It says, by and large, it's a
network of young men, many who attended Stanford and had
(04:03):
attention of the world's biggest venture capitalists before they even
left campus. Among the set, risk taking is regarded as
a badge of honor. Ideas are disposable. If one doesn't work,
you move on quickly to another. Timing matters. You make
your own luck. Which I feel like that that nugget
right there of moving quickly, taking risks making your own
(04:26):
luck is maybe an example that women could learn from
from more so as well, because we do tend to
be a little more risk averse. Yeah, so jump jump
in there, Jump in there, because you too could make
a billion dollars from Facebook, from your app. Yeah, And
I mean Instagram is a great example of something that
started off as a different incarnation. Um It's started off
(04:47):
as a project kind of like four square, but for pictures,
right exactly. It was an HTML five check in project
for mobile photography. So and I think it was my
Krieger who had the initial idea where he saw what
four square was doing and he liked the idea of
the location based check ins, but he wanted to do
(05:09):
something more with pictures. But then once four square really
started taking off, he's like, we need to focus more
on the photo. And then on October sixth, two thousand ten,
history was made in the Apple Store, right, that's when
Instagram hits the Apple Store and within the first twenty
(05:31):
four hours they have twenty five thousand users, and they
had three hundred thousand by week three, and fast forward
to today, they have over one thirty million users with
over sixteen billion photos uploaded. And it took off so
quickly within the first twenty four hours that they had
(05:54):
to call up a guy that they knew over from
Facebook to help because their server kept ashing. They're like,
we don't know what to do. We've made apparently the
most incredible thing in the world, and our servers can't
keep up because everyone loves posting selfie so much. It's
like the Internet didn't know what it was missing until
October six, two thousand and ten. Um But in analysis
(06:17):
that's been done since that short window of tom I
mean that's we're only we're only in. But analysts would
say that this fits naturally within the progression of how
we use the Internet, particularly women and young adults, right,
I mean, look at Pinterest. We've done an episode on
(06:37):
Pinterest before talking about just this culture of curating online
rather than creating, and how Pinterest is such a women
driven site. Instagram is too, but not quite to the
same degree. So the Pew Center did a breakdown of
who's using it and found that sixteen percent of women
(06:57):
Internet users are on Instagram versus ten percent of male
Internet users, and I was surprised to see that the
gender gap wasn't wider, almost Pinterest sized, because I don't
know about you, Carolin, but I feel like Instagram is
stereotyped as very female centric. I don't know. Maybe it's
(07:19):
because I just got on there recently and hadn't been
paying attention to it, but I didn't really have a
stereotype about it either way. But I also do follow
a pretty even split of men and women online. I
wonder if that idea in my head of been Instagram
being more lady focused is because of the rise of
the selfie, because while guys and girls I'm sure post
(07:42):
equal amounts of selfies. What a guy taking a photo
of himself ever called a selfie? You know? I asked
dude roommate about this last night. Yeah, and he was
so like scornful and dismissive of the idea of the selfie.
He was like, well, that's a girl thing. Girls to that,
and it's really stupid. Guy would never do that. He's like,
the only time I would ever take what you would
(08:03):
call a selfie is if I had like a cool
scar on my face that I got from fighting. I
was like, Okay, you're masculine, so then what it we
call is scarfie? Oh I like it. He In fact,
the puce that I found that age is a much
stronger predictor of Instagram use than gender, with eighteen to
(08:25):
twenty nine year olds comprising the core demo. And we're
just we're just holding on there. Yeah, you and I
and the cord demographic, we're just holding on. We're millennials.
We're in there. Um. And there's an interesting race breakdown
as well. And I think this also holds for Twitter,
in that Instagram is more popular among black and Hispanic
(08:46):
users versus white users, and also income wise, those making
under thirty k are the most likely to use it,
and that probably has to do with the age factor.
We're a lot younger, we're probably not making as much money.
But the fact though that the we're making under thirty
dollars but using Instagram the most. And yet Instagram often
(09:07):
sort of us in a in a status conscious kind
of way of taking pictures of either you know, your
your beautiful face and your cool hair, your shoes, or
your bag or your vacation spot. Right, I mean, I liked,
I do like to post vacation photos. I don't really
want to take pictures of cool clothes or bags because
I don't know if I have any cool closure bags.
(09:28):
But one thing that I did notice, I mean, demographic wise,
is uh, it is also much more likely to be
used by city dwellers versus people in rural areas, which
I wonder what the reason for that is. Maybe there's
just something more appealing about the urban vista with sky
scrapers and sunsets and skylines. There we go urban skylines. Um.
(09:52):
But I wanted to know what kind of stuff people
are posting on Instagram outside of just the basic things
of well selfies and food uh, so we looked at
the most common Instagram tags, which aren't necessarily specific to
the objects, but I thought they were kind of fascinating.
This is as of June. This was reported on by
(10:15):
HuffPo text Brian Hanigman and the number one Instagram tag love,
And I thought that was all cute until I realized
that people probably post love for like things. Also, exactly,
you're just as likely to post love under a picture
of your boyfriend as you are a pair of shoes
or something. Sure not to be totally cynical, No, it's true. Yeah,
(10:39):
love is followed by insta, good Me, TBT, Throwback Thursday,
and cute. So those at least those top five hashtags
do sound at least feminine skewing. They do, they do,
except for I didn't realize what TB he stood for.
(11:00):
So there we go, everyone, I'm learning something right in
front of your ears. Throwback Thursday, that's what we could
post on Instagram. Yeah, I have Sally has so many
baby pictures with me displaying my baby mullet. We could
easily post some Caroline baby mullet pictures on Throwback Thursday.
And I have kindergarten mullet pictures to post, Caroline, let's
just stop recording and get on Instagram right now, all right. Well,
(11:24):
so one thing that did not pop up in the
top five tags on Instagram is food. Food. Food. I
think of all of the negative stereotypes about Instagram, one
of the main ones is what's up with all these
food pictures? Well, you stop posting your food on Instagram.
(11:45):
I think there's even I'm sure there are multiple ones,
but there's even a giant Facebook group with a mean
title about we hate people who post food on Instagram. Yeah,
there is it. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know
what's so impressive about taking pictures of your dinner, uh,
you know, other than maybe if you haven't eaten in
a really long time. Well, I have seen some some
(12:08):
accounts from professional food photographers and cooks, and it's really
pretty and gorgeous. Yes, I agree with you. There. I
take back kind of partially what I said, because I
do follow a chef and I do love seeing his
food pictures. Um, but yeah, I mean in general, man, well,
maybe this this gets to the heart of your myn
for that. According to data from moment Feed, the cheesecake
(12:33):
factory is the number one most instagrammed restaurant. Yeah, I
I rolled real hard at this because cheesecake factories followed
in this list by Applebe's Chilies, and Olive Garden, and
I was like, come on, seriously, And then I thought
about it. I was like, Okay, don't be so judgmental.
These restaurants are all over the country versus like your
little neighborhood bistro that obviously would not be the most
(12:54):
instagrammed place in the country. Yeah. I mean there's one
location of your adorable bistro over this is how many
cheesecake factories. And I will say the portion sizes the
cheesecake factory are incredible. Yes, I would want to take
a picture just to prove how big my pasta portion was.
But some of the research that has been applied to
(13:15):
Instagram has looked at this aspect of snapping pics of
our food, and there was a study published in Psychological
Science which suggested, loosely the instagramming meals might actually have
the benefit of making the food taste better. Right in
the same way that people say, you know, you shouldn't
(13:37):
watch TV at the same time that you eat, or
you know, do another activity while you're eating, you should
focus on your food. Researchers from the University of Minnesota
and Harvard Business School found that rituals enhanced the enjoyment
of consumption because of the greater involvement in this experience
that they prompt. So, like, the study had people, um
(13:58):
like given the rich of breaking a chocolate bar in
a certain way and eating it in a very ritualized
fashion versus just shoving it in your face like I
do when I eat a chocolate bar. And the people
who like had a ritual to it and we're supposed
to like break it here and then eat half and
then do this, they were able to enjoy it more
because it kind of slowed them down. I guess, yeah,
(14:18):
it's delaying that gratification. Um And while the study didn't
look specifically at Instagram, study author Kathleen Divos did tell
having imposed that it seemed like a ritual that could
enhance pleasure from food, But I mean that could be
applied to other things as simple as uh, you know,
growing up in my family, we would bless the food first,
(14:41):
and I remember sitting there and being like, can I
just want to eat? And then of course, you know,
like once I finally got to eat it was maybe
especially delicious, but Instagram could be considered a more tech
savvy type of ritual that you could apply. But instagramming
all of your meals could also accord to some people
be too much of a good thing. Yeah. This is
(15:04):
coming from Dr Valerie Taylor, who told the Canadian Obesity
Summit that obsessively instagram documenting your food could be a
sign of an actual unhealthy and complicated relationship with food.
She talks about how these people aren't taking pictures of
the people there with they're taking them of food, and
it's sort of another way of demonstrating just like we
talked about in our foodie episodes and all that stuff,
(15:26):
foods elevated importance and our lives more so than like hobbies.
Now we have food. Yeah. Well, while food definitely tends
to polarize people on Instagram in terms of whether they're
totally for it or like totally against it, one of
the most controversial topics that's come up in terms of
(15:48):
Instagram are images of mom's breastfeeding on there, and a
lot of people may have seen an image that went
viral from breastfeeding yoga mom. Her user name is a
daughter of the sun. Yeah, and she had a picture
of her doing a headstand naked and her child I
(16:11):
believe was her daughter, was breastfeeding. All of this was
going on at the same time. I'm just impressed with
her balance. I feel like that's too much for my
brain to handle doing all the same time. So anyway,
this was a picture from it. Like Kristen said, it
went viral and as a result, Instagram disabled her account. Yeah,
and this isn't the first time that Instagram has run
into issues taking down or censoring pictures of moms breastfeeding,
(16:35):
which has led to lots of conversations about well, hey,
you know, what's what's so wrong with women exposing their
breast in this way? It's not sexualized their breastfeeding. Facebook
has had similar issues as well. Also Tumbler and people
are upset that Instagram has taken down Daughter of the Son.
There's even a mini campaign to get them to reactivate
(16:59):
her account. And I have a feeling that Kevin's sistrom
and Mike Creager, who founded Instagram, probably never thought they
were going to have to outline a breastfeeding policy on Instagram.
But this is what it is. Uh Instagram's policy on
breastfeeding is we agree that breastfeeding is natural and beautiful,
and we're glad to know that it's important for mothers
(17:20):
to share their experiences with others on Instagram. The vast
majority of these photos are compliant with our policies. Photos
that show a fully exposed breast where the child is
not actively engaged in nursing, do violate our community guidelines.
These policies are based on the same standards which applied
to television in print media. Well, the thing about that,
(17:40):
like people were arguing, Okay, well her breast wasn't showing
and she was actively engaged in breastfeeding. However, they do
have a new nudity policy. So but I mean it's
like the side, it's a profile shot where you see
the side of her her bottom from her bottom bom uh,
And don't it's not like you see her expose vagina
(18:02):
or anything like that. I mean, God forbid vagina. Um.
So yeah, I want to know from from listeners whether
or not you think that it's cool to crackdown on
breastfeeding photos or if it's like, come on, can we
just get over this fear of the breast? Well, those
were a lot of the comments. That was the split
(18:23):
kind of on the story talking about this, because it
seemed like people were either get over it, who cares?
Like breastfeeding is natural? What are you so worked up about?
And other people who were like, she's an exhibitionist. You know,
she wants to post all these naked photos and they're
titillating and she just wants attention. But it wasn't when
I clicked through a gallery of a lot of her
(18:44):
photos and they were gorgeous. You live in Hawaii with
her family on this commune, and a lot of them
were very scenic and interesting and kind of made me
want to go live in a hippie commune and but
only like yeah, exactly. Um. But speaking of the fact
though that she was doing a yoga headstand, one thing
(19:06):
I was surprised to see was how intense of a
yoga community is on Instagram. These yoga folks have hundreds
of thousands of followers, to the point that there was
a New York Times trend piece that came out not
too long about this right, and it gives a whole
lot of guidelines, like if you're going to take these
(19:27):
pictures like you know, it was asking all of these
Instagram yoga people what makes them so successful on the site,
And a lot of it has to do with framing.
Don't have your dirty dishes in the background, have a nice,
peaceful background where some fancy s fancy leggings. Um. You know,
one woman was saying that she sets her fancy camera
to take pictures every two seconds as she's going through poses,
(19:51):
and the pictures were gorgeous. The ones that the New
York Times had pulled for the piece were incredible. Um.
But they're are some who would say that yoga is about,
you know, cultivating yourself away from the ego, the concept
of the ego, and isn't trying to amass hundreds of
(20:12):
thousands of followers on Instagram by putting on mermaid leggings
and doing incredible headstands violating those principles. Yeah, and you
know what, that was brought up in that story and
it was never really answered, which I thought was interesting
because they put that question to some of the people
and they were like, oh, well, you know, legging. Well,
(20:33):
it's I mean, I think for the breastfeeding issue and
for the yoga stuff and even for food too. Um,
it's kind of cool to see how Instagram is exposing
what we're comfortable with seeing, and we're not comfortable with
seeing what seems to violate our norms in like very
everyday kinds of ways. Like normally, like if you and
(20:54):
I were walking past, uh, you know, a table of
people eating lunch and we saw their food, we wouldn't
like put it away, but we had a room. Yeah,
but we don't want to see a photo of that.
What's the difference. Well, I mean, I think it's the
same thing with selfies. You know, like I think you're
a very lovely person sitting across from me, but if
(21:15):
I see you posting pictures of yourself every five minutes
on Facebook, I'm gonna be like, Kristen, cut it out.
Enough of those selfies. Uh, yeah, we got to talk
about the selfies. Selfie was coined on Flicker actually and
popped up on my Space in two thousand four, So
selfie's been around in our vernacular for a long time,
(21:36):
but only recently has the online Oxford English Dictionary adopted it.
Shaking my head, you are shaking your head, just shaking
my head. I just you know, just because people say words, well,
I mean to be fair. The O. E. D. Also
is including denim on denim and cake pops and there editions.
(21:57):
So look, stop trying to make fetch happen? Okay anyway,
um So, as more than twenty three million photos with
the selfie tag had been uploaded and seventy million photos
were tagged me and some of course, we're saying this
is just an example of millennial narcissism, pure and simple.
(22:22):
I feel like if you pick up any trend piece
written about millennials, you're gonna see a mention of Instagram
and selfies, saying these people clearly are obsessed with themselves
because they can't stop taking images of themselves. But I
will say, in the defense of the selfie in the
front facing camera for someone who is simply not very photogenic,
(22:44):
I'm not saying like I'm a troll. I'm just saying,
like cameras don't always capture my my best angles and
being able to manipulate and find precisely where you look
the best, I mean, yeah, I take a picture, sure. Yeah. Plus,
Mindy Kaling has the whole chapter in her in her
book about it. It's not selfie, she pro selfie. Oh
my god. Yeah, it's like her she was basically talking
(23:05):
about how our entire black Berry is filled with selfies
and how she uses it not only just to take
pictures of herself willy nilly, but also like check her makeup,
how do I look in glasses? How do I look smiling?
You know, it's my hair, Okay, But then she doesn't
delete them, and it's kind of silly. Well, you could
argue that maybe the ability to take a perfect selfie
is good for girls because it allows us to maybe
(23:27):
more easily find our own beauty. I'm going on a limb. Yeah,
you're you're out on a limb. But see, like what,
I don't know. I am trying not to be I'm
trying not to be super judgmental about people who post
NonStop selfies, Like what is what is up with that
(23:47):
sense of selfie? Yeah, like fifteen a day or something
crazy like that. What's going on? I'm not sure. I mean,
Pamela Rutledge has a more positive outlook on all of
these selfies are being posted. She's the director of the
Media's Psychology Research Center, and she was talking to the
Christian Science Monitor about this, and she said that selfies
(24:09):
are simply democratizing the quote unquote once snooty practice of
self portraiture, and she's like, you know what, Yeah, we
see a lot of selfies, but selfies have been going
on ever since the mirror was invented in the fifteenth century,
and it became a lot easier for people to paint
self portraits. So I don't know about that because I'm
(24:29):
kind of looking at it from the opposite direction like
she is saying, it's it's not a negative thing, you
know that it's democratizing something that used to be just
in the upper echelons. But I'm looking at it as no,
we're all narcissistic and we all always have been, and
now we just have an easier way to capture photos
of ourselves or images of ourselves well, and to post
(24:52):
those images and to select the perfect image for that.
There was actually to study, uh that is one of
the only studies looking specifically at Instagram, looking at an
application of Instagram, and the methodology was a little limited,
I'll say, to extrapolate too many results from it, but
(25:12):
it came out in April out of Sweden's University of Goldenburg,
and what the researchers did was look at how people
used Instagram when they were visiting a natural history museum,
so okay um, And they concluded that people put a
lot of time and effort into the Instagram pictures that
(25:34):
they upload that it wasn't just a lot of kind
of vapid selfie photos, but they were really going through
and creating and curating the best possible photo. But also,
I mean you have to think about it. These are
you know, it's a self selected group of people who
are going to a natural history museum, and probably natural
(25:54):
history museums are not don't lend themselves as well to
selfies as say where where's a place, as a as
a party, as a cool party, as a rooftop party
in Brooklyn. Well, yeah, I mean the whole putting a
lot of time into it. Also, you've got to think
about what is the motivation for that. You want to
(26:15):
post good pictures because you want people to click like
and comment and so that other people can see that
their friends liked your pictures, so that they can start
following you. Well, and you want to just look good
to the world. It's all. It's a new facet and
well not so new facet now of this constant self
presentation that we have to maintain which I personally find
(26:37):
exhausting on my On my personal Facebook account, I don't Hey,
I don't post that much, and I really don't post
many photos because it just I don't know, it's so much.
It is a lot. I prefer to use Facebook. I
did post vacation photos because of course, but um, I
I used it mainly to post links about things I'm
interested in. Well, Caroline with those photos of vacation for instance,
(27:01):
all right, and I'm sure did you instagram some to
share a couple. Yeah, Vaca photos very common on Instagram.
A lot of times. The stuff that we're going to
see on Instagram, because it's image based, are really you know,
it's really portraying the best of our lives. And so
some research is now looking into, well, what is the
(27:21):
impact of consuming Instagram? Not like, what does it mean
when we're taking all these selfies? But what does looking
all these selfies? What is me seeing your photo of
you on the beach due to me when I'm sitting
in my cubicle. Um, Because there's been a ton of
research now on the impact of consuming Facebook, and a
(27:43):
lot of it is negative, saying that it provokes jealousy
and depression and feelings of isolation because we are curating
how our lives look to the world, usually in the
best possible light. So what about Instagram. Well, you know,
when I was reading this, and I had been looking
at some of the studies on Facebook and just thinking,
you know, this is so I don't really feel that
way about Facebook. I don't feel like I'm missing the
(28:06):
party or something when I look at Facebook. But then
when I was looking at the Slate article that said
quote Instagram distills the most crazy making aspects of the
Facebook experience, I was like, bingo, Because, like we said,
people post really beautiful pictures on Instagram. They do put
a lot of time and effort into it. And so
some of the people I'm following, you know, I don't
(28:26):
even know them. They're traveling the world and they're posting
pictures of like Buddhist temples and wherever they're they are.
You know, I'm like, oh, man, I guess I'll just
go to work today and send traffic again. Well, even
if someone's not traveling around, thanks to the filters, Instagram
really can make the ordinary look extraordinary exactly. This podcast
(28:47):
is brought to you by Instagram. Instagram if you'd like
to send me that check. Um, but really, I mean,
you can we could take we could make our podcast
studio look so cool. I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure there's
a filter for that. It's like the Nashville one maybe
on Nashville or Kelvin. I'm sure yeah. Um, but so.
Hanna Krasnova of Humble University in Berlin co authored a
(29:10):
study on Facebook and those envy spirals, and she talked
about how um photos can provoke immediate social comparison and
that can make you feel inferior. And you know, whereas
I might just be posting links on Facebook about issues
or news stories I'm interested in, you know, she's saying
news stories don't promote envy. That's where those pictures come in.
(29:33):
And Cataline Atma of the Department of Communication Arts at
the University of Wisconsin Madison has also looked into Facebook
and um how it affects our self esteem, and she
told Slate uh that the photographs, likes, and comments are
the aspects of the Facebook experience that are the most
important in driving the self esteem effects. And so when
(29:55):
you isolate all that down kind of like you were saying,
the way that instag Graham does, then Yeah, you're probably
gonna see some very similar results in terms of Instagram
provoking not so positive self esteem. Yeah, I don't know. Like,
there's this one guy I follow who posts pictures of
(30:17):
his beautiful life and they're like in all these far
flong locations that I was just thinking last night, like
I need to stop following this guy, Like his life
looks too amazing. I can't even handle it well. Socialist
psychologist Sarah J. Gervais wrote over at Psychology Today that
she she sees all of the selfies that people post,
(30:41):
all of the diversity of the actual faces and bodies
that you see on Instagram. Maybe, maybe Caroline is not
that you need to unfollow those people, but just follow
more people to provide a more diverse feed, because she says,
this is actually all going to be good for our
body image because it showcases diversity. Right instead of only
(31:02):
having like Glamour or Vogue to flip through where everybody's
airbrushed and in designer clothes and looking amazing, but only
looking like kind of one kind of amazing. Um, she
is saying that, you know, Instagram, even if we are
trying to present the best picture to the world, Instagram
does give you a more diverse picture of humanity kind of.
And she also likes how it does give a glimpse
(31:24):
into what she calls the makings of people's everyday lives.
She says, we get a sense of those things that
make the everyday extraordinary, things that inspire us, peak our curiosity,
deeply touch us and make us smile. But I do
think there's that fine line between all of those things
that are incredible and inspire us in the everyday working
to other people's lives, and how we internalize that and
(31:47):
compare it to the shortcomings perceived or otherwise in our
own lives. Yeah, and you also don't want to be
too much of a stalker, no, although it can be
hard to also not not do that as well. So
from what we know today, which is not a lot,
we we know who uses Instagram, We know the kinds
(32:07):
of things that are on Instagram. We know that people
love posting pictures of themselves and food and yoga poses.
What do you think? What's your take? Well, you know,
as somebody who's new to Instagram, I I do like
it a lot. I think it's great. I like keeping
up with not only what people in my community are doing,
but what world travelers are doing and looking at all.
(32:28):
They're awesome pictures. But I think we should start a movement, Kristen.
I think instead of food pictures and selfies, we need
to come up with something else. What is something else
that we can obsessively post pictures about. You mean in
terms of on the more inspirational front. You know how
tumbler has all and and pinterest as all those inspirational
(32:51):
quotes that are everywhere will be the Instagram real world
imagery version of that. I don't know, but I have
star did uh Like? There's another app. There's an Instagram
related app called overgram where you can put texts in
nice fonts over your images. And I've started putting Whitney
Houston lyrics on top of my inspirational looking sunset photos. Well,
(33:14):
it sounds like you're going to be managing the new stuff.
I've never told you Instagram, I'm so on it. Well,
we want to hear from you. Now. What do you
think about Instagram? Do you do you use it? Do
you like it? Do you loath it? Let us know
all of your thoughts. Mom. Stuff at Discovery dot com
is where you can send your letters and if there
was an aspect of Instagram that we didn't talk about,
(33:36):
because it would have been impossible to talk about every
single genre of Instagram photo. Let us know if there's
been one that's really piqued your interest, and of course,
if you want us to get on Instagram, let us know. Now.
Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is where you can
send your emails. You can also find us on Facebook
and follow us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. And
(33:56):
we've got a couple of letters to read when we
come back, and now actually our letters. I have a
letter here from Heather subject line getting pregnant over thirty
five question Mark in response to our fertility episode. She says,
I'm so sad that waiting for Mr Wright was never
mentioned as a reason for delaying pregnancy. I know several
(34:17):
over thirty five year old women who would love to
find the guy, get married and have babies. They even
feel a bit despondent at times and think they may
never get married and have a baby. I'm so tired
of all the articles talking about how women are delaying
having babies to work on their careers. I myself finally
met the right guy at thirty four, waited for him
to finish grad school, got married at thirty eight, pregnant
(34:38):
at thirty nine, and finally had a baby at forty.
Trust me, I would have been ready at twenty five.
I think most women know they can have a career
and a baby, but most women do not want to
use a sperm downer and be a single mom. So
thanks for your story, Heather, And I've got an email
here from Joanna also in response to that episode on
(34:58):
getting pregnant after at their five. But um, it's actually
about miscarriage, which was something that we mentioned that we
need to do an episode on, and she said this
past May, I lost my daughter when I was twenty
two weeks pregnant. I have been blessed have a number
of women in my life who have experienced pregnancy or
early infant deaths, so they understand. However, talking to other
women online, I realized that a lot of people don't
(35:20):
have that kind of support. I just feel that people
who have had a loss may not know where to
turn to for support. Also, other people may not know
how to respond. So the worst is when people don't
acknowledge the loss at all. Some come in comments that
people who are trying to help say that are actually hurtful.
Include your baby would have been disabled. Be grateful for
the children you have. It was God's plan, God need
(35:44):
another angel. Don't say you will make a good mom someday.
I'm a mom now I have experienced the type of
pain that many moms will never experience. People also need
to understand that seeing other pregnant people, babies and children
may be hard, and to not be upset if we
can't attend baby showers or birthdays. Things you can do
send a card, opfer to spend time with us, let
(36:05):
us cry, ask about our babies, remember us on Mother's
Day or due date in the date of our loss.
Help us connect to other people who have experienced a loss.
Sorry for such a long email. If you really enjoy
your show and hope you do an episode on miscarriages.
So thank you Joanna for um that candid letter, and
we absolutely will do an episode on miscarriage because I'm
(36:27):
sure that a lot of listeners, both women and men,
can relate to that topic. So if you have a
topic you'd like to request, or just want to send
us a shout out, you can email us mom Stuff
at Discovery dot com. You can also find us on
Facebook or follow us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast,
and you can follow us on Tumbler as well to
(36:47):
keep up with us during the week where at stuff
mom Never told You dot tumbler dot com, and of
course you can watch us on YouTube as well where
at YouTube dot com, slash stuff Mom Never Told You,
and don't forget to subscribe for more on this and
thousands of other topics. Is It How staff Works dot com.
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.