Social media platforms are, I would postulate, some of the most significant contributors to our rapidly-developing culture of narcissism. This is especially true of Instagram, which is basically the social media version of a self-promoting picture book.<\/p>\n
Full disclosure: I love Instagram. Between all the dumb crap that my cats do, and a weird recent obsession with trying to start up a fitness channel, I have plenty of self-validating content to post around the clock \u2014 and the subsequent \u201clikes\u201d, follows, and comments make me feel like I, a single participant in one of the largest social media platforms around, matter. That\u2019s what\u2019s so great about Instagram.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, that\u2019s also what\u2019s so dangerous about the seemingly innocuous platform. Everything we post \u2014 and I truly challenge you to find a counterexample here \u2014 is from a validation-seeking standpoint. While you can certainly make a case from this perspective for almost any social media contender, I believe that Instagram is the worst offender here.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s why: rather than \u201casking\u201d others to validate our words (and maybe an occasional meme or selfie) a la Facebook, Instagram is sheer self-promotion.<\/p>\n
We use our bodies, our pets, our food, our surroundings, our belongings \u2014 basically any attractive asset available \u2014 to fulfill our insatiable need for validation.<\/p>\n
The more followers we have, the more likes we average, the more we want.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t get me wrong, this makes IG completely invaluable from a business standpoint. We can use our accumulated follower bases to influence and control our brands, which – while still self-serving \u2014 can have positive effects outside of our own personal growth.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, these factors also make Instagram downright devastating to that same personal growth.<\/p>\n
Now, I\u2019m certainly not going to stop using (and abusing) Instagram for my own personal gain \u2014 and neither should you.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m also <\/em>not going to pretend for a second that anything I say or do on IG is for a purpose other than validating the superficial qualities of my own existence, be they trivial or otherwise.<\/p>\n And, should you agree with me, I would encourage you to do the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (EDITORIAL) The more Instagram followers we have, the more likes we average, and the more we want. Let’s discuss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":337375,"featured_media":9501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[254],"tags":[635,1178,1234,355],"class_list":["post-9488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorials","tag-instagram","tag-oped","tag-real-estate-news","tag-social-media"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/11\/instagram.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/337375"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9488"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14530,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9488\/revisions\/14530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theamericangenius.com\/housing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}