Instagram, Social Comparison, and User Self-Esteem: A Report

This report investigates the psychological effects of Instagram usage, focusing on the platform's influence on user self-esteem and the role of social comparison. The study begins with an introduction highlighting Instagram's rapid growth and its potential impact on users' mental well-being, particularly through exposure to curated content and celebrity lifestyles. A literature review examines existing research on Instagram, motives for its use, social comparison, and self-esteem, drawing on key articles and studies. The report explores the motives and drivers for using Instagram, how Instagram influences the user’s self-esteem, and whether users evaluate themselves in terms of the number of followers and feedback. It also investigates if comparing with celebrities or friends increases or decreases the user’s self-evaluation. The methodology includes a mixed-methods approach, using both qualitative and quantitative data to analyze user behavior, self-evaluation, and emotional consequences. The report aims to provide insights into how Instagram usage correlates with self-esteem and whether negative emotions affect the intention to continue using the platform. The study highlights the importance of understanding the social and cultural implications of Instagram use and its effects on individuals' psychological well-being.

1.Introduction
Numbers of active Instagram users are increasing every year.Instagram is the social media
platform which is considered as the fastest growing network site globally (Wagner, 2015). It
has seen rapid growth in the number of users as well as uploads since its launch in October
2010. In 2018, more than 1 billion users are using Instagram. Among those, more than 500
million Instagram users are active every single day. ("Instagram Business", 2020). They
contribute more than 100 million videos and photos every day ("Instagram by the Numbers
(2020): Stats, Demographics & Fun Facts", 2020). This platform is known to have a more
affluent audience and many celebrities are using it as well. Cristiano Ronaldo is the most-
followed celebrity with 197 million followers on Instagram - as 3 times bigger than the
German population and this number keeps growing. Most of them share their fabulous and
luxurious lifestyles to their fans. This unintentionally leads to social comparison and
negative emotions from their followers. Social comparison theory by Festinger (1954) can
be applied to explain this phenomenon (see chapter 2.1). This theory suggests that people
evaluate their own personal worth based on how they compare to others.
Acquiring a thorough understanding of Instagram under different perspectives is important
because it will help us gain insights on social, cultural issues about people. Many
researchers have tackled different approaches (e.g. Emotional consequences, Negative
Social Comparison), therefore we will explore it from a different perspective. To be more
specific, we would aim for:
 What are the motives and drivers for using Instagram?
 How much Instagram influences the user’s self-esteem?
 Do users evaluate themselves in terms of the number of followers and feedback?
 Does the tendency of comparison with celebrities or friends increase or decrease the user’s
self-evaluation?
With these aims, the current research entailed a mixed-methods approach in which both
qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed. This mixed-methods study gives both
qualitative and quantitative data equal priority. Qualitative analysis is used to examine the
activity of users on Instagram. Based on our analysis, several insights about their motives
and drivers will be revealed in the quantitative analysis. Furthermore, quantitative results
also show how self-evaluation and social comparison correlates to one another. Last but not
least, it is also important to look into how emotional consequences affect their intention to
use Instagram in the future, whether users want to keep using or not.
A picture speaks a thousand words. But also, how Instagram users react or feel about any
content on their newsfeed speak many insights about themselves or to be more specifically
their self-esteem. Does a twinge of envy when witnessing other’s happiness show one’s low
self-esteem? Or may indifference reflect the other way around? And despite negative
emotion when using Instagram, do users continue using this platform in the future?
Let’s figure out in the next chapters.
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2. Literature review
Instagram is being used primarily for sharing photos and images either with friends or the
wider public. It allows followers, either friends or strangers to leave comments and likes. These
features characterize activity that may make people particularly vulnerable to negative effects of use
on well-being. It is important to study the social aspects of Instagram users’ motives and intentions.
Aims of the search were to find articles regarding use of Instagram, esp. motive, social
comparison and self-esteem. Our first search was conducted via Google Scholar by searching with
relevant keywords. We found ten articles thus we had to reduce to 7 articles. We were looking at the
number of citations of these articles, but there was not enough citation for these articles, thus we
looked for another quality indicator. The next step was to look at the VHB list, which is Verband
der Hochschullehrer für Betriebswirtschaft (VHB) with rankings go from A+ (highest) to D
(lowest) to see how the articles are ranked, but these articles were not ranked. Luckily there was one
quality indicator that we could find whether these articles (journals) are suitable and trusted enough
to be used in this study. With the help of JIF, stands for Journals Impact Factor (JIF) providing tools
for ranking, evaluating various International/National Journals having ISSN published by Learning
societies Universities and Institutions & Publication house, we found that all the articles had high
percentage impact with values over 10% of citation and impact (see table 2). The last step was to
look for the fit of these articles with the aim of our study. Table 1 gives an overview of our article
collection and how many times they were cited and how they are ranked on VHB list and JIF:
# Article Author
Year
VHB
List
Citation
Google
Scholar
JIF
1 The effect of Instagram
likes on women's social comparison and body
dissatisfaction
Sep.,2018 Not
ranked
21 3.124
(21%)
2 Self-Schema and Self-discrepancy mediate the
influence of Instagram usage on body image
satisfaction among youth
March,
2017
Not
ranked
66 4.206
(11.4%)
3 The Positive Side of Social Comparison on
Social Network Sites: How envy can drive
insoiration on Instagram
2018 Not
ranked
11 2.65 -
(39,4%)
4 Social Comparison as the thief of Joy: Emotional
Consequences of viewing Strangers' Instagram
Posts
2018 Not
ranked
35 3.502 -
(21%)
5 Social Media and Loneliness: Why an Instagram
picture may be worth more than a thousand
Twitter words
Sep 16 Not
ranked
258 3.536 -
(21%)
6 Instagram #Instasad?: Exploring Associations
Among Instagram Use, Depressive Symptoms,
Negative Social Comparison and Strangers
Followed
2015 Not
ranked
182 2.650 -
(39,4%)
7 Instagram: motives for ist use and relationship to
narcissim and contextual age
2016 Not
ranked
357 3.435 -
(21%)
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The digital technologies help the people more remain more connected, therefore through
social media individuals also gain the opportunity to share the content through networks. The
estimation describes that in the current year more users are adults (Pittman & Reich, 2016). The
Status Quo of the study is to understand that the image based platforms which includes “Twitter,
Instagram and Snapchat” decrease the loneliness and raise the happiness of the individual because
of offering the intimacy which are considered highly valuable for the users. The data collection was
done through adopting the mixed-design survey so that researchers can test the possibility, for
analyzing the data researchers adopt the chi-square testing method (Pittman & Reich, 2016).
Researchers describe that the various forms of media are evolving in the current year, this is
due to the reason because this leads to increasing more interaction and support the users to make
new friends by using social media networks (Pittman & Reich, 2016). It also describes that Social
media use continues to grow and is especially prevalent among young adults. It is surprising then
that, in spite of this enhanced interconnectivity, young adults may be lonelier than other age groups,
and that the current generation may be the loneliest ever. The findings of status quo describes that
by using the image-based social media the users become more satisfied as well as reduces the
loneliness of the person, further researchers also revealed that Instagram, twitter support the user by
increasing their satisfaction level, motivation and help the user to become more happy and satisfied
with life. The qualitative outcomes of the study describes that these “image-based content” helps in
improving the intimacy which are offered by the social media application to the users.
Instagram is considered the fastest social media network which is used by a number of
users globally (Sheldon & Bryant, 2016). Researchers demonstrate that users spend a high number
of time by using Instagram in comparison to the other social media networks. Therefore Instagram
is an online application where users can share their photos; video and it also provides an
opportunity to the user for taking pictures. The objective of status quo is to investigate the motives
of users for using Instagram application, the research also focuses on describing the ways through
which Instagram increases the satisfaction level of the users and support them to live and think in a
more positive manner (Sheldon & Bryant, 2016). Researchers revealed that according to the
assumption of the theory that is U & G theory that users remain more active and use social media
according to their needs and requirements that is based on the level of the motivation and self –
esteem accepted by the user through adopting social media applications. Researchers describe that
Instagram has become one of the growing social media applications in which large numbers of
users remain active. It is because this leads to increasing the motivation level of the users and
allows the user to remain more satisfied with their life.
In status quo researchers also describe that there is direct and positive association among
using Instagram and to maintain a high level of interpersonal interaction with the other person. The
study will get the information by taking the survey from the 239 students which are in colleges so
that they can describe the main purpose of using Instagram such as because of “creativity”,
“coolness” as well as “ surveillance” and due to various other reasons (Sheldon & Bryant, 2016).
The investigation of the study revealed that there is also a positive relationship of the users for using
Instagram for the purpose of coolness and creativity and innovation. The analysis of the data
describes that through Instagram users get motivated because of documentation and also revealed
that users get more satisfied due to remain cool and also for the reason of surveillance.
Social network sites (SNS) which includes “Instagram” facilitates the emotional experience
of the user and supports the users to remain motivated in their life. Therefore, Instagram has
influence on the well-being of the users (Meier & Schäfer, 2018). The researchers also describe that
Instagram is becoming one of the faster which is highly used for the user and enhancing the lives of
the user by raising their satisfaction level of users. The status quo focuses on describing the social
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comparisons and relation of Instagram with the inspiration, the purpose of the research is also to
state the motivational level by using Instagram.
Researchers revealed that comparison leads in increasing the increasing the satisfaction level
of the users and also engage the individual to improve the attitudes and behavior of the users (Meier
& Schäfer, 2018). Therefore, inspiration is the complex approach which allows and supports the
users to remain self-motivated and to remain well-being, this is also considered the approach
because it supports the user to remain motivated and to achieve the state the inspiration. The study
was conducted through adopting the “structural equation modeling mediation analysis”, in this
research the sample size of the research is 385 (Meier & Schäfer, 2018). Researchers demonstrate
that Instagram increases the ability and drives the inspiration level and emotions of the user it is
because through this the user can communicate with a large number of other users and support the
individual to remain more connected. The intensity of using Instagram is more because of
considering it one of the most inspiring applications, however youngsters also use this it is due the
reason that it leads in motivating the user to live a better life.
The status quo also demonstrates that the researchers measure the social comparisons by
comparing Instagram with the other social media networks such as Facebook (Meier & Schäfer,
2018). Through the investigation it is revealed that the intensity of Instagram is far more positive it
is because of the intensity of using this application is highly related with the inspiration and
relationship. Therefore, it has positive effects on the motivation and satisfaction level of the users
and raises the well-being of users (Meier & Schäfer, 2018).
Study by Tiggeman et al. (2018) is called “The effect of Instagram likes on women’s social
comparison and body dissatisfaction” which was published in 2018 by Tiggeman, Hayden, Brown
and Veldhuis. They were examining the number of likes of Instagram photos and how they affect
the user experience and lead them to have negative emotions like dissatisfaction.
The major aim of the study was to examine the effect of the number of likes accompanying
Instagram images on body and facial dissatisfaction. The sample size was 220 female undergraduate
students at Flinders University aged between 18 and 30 years. The experimental design between-
subjects employs 2 (likes condition: low, high) × 2 (image type: thin-ideal, average). The dependent
variables were body dissatisfaction, facial dissatisfaction, and social comparison. Instagram use and
investment were tested as potential moderating variables. The researchers found out the number of
likes had no effect on state appearance comparison or body dissatisfaction, but had a positive effect
on facial dissatisfaction. Therefore, a high number of likes led to reduced facial dissatisfaction. The
research also concludes effects were not moderated by Instagram use or involvement, but women
with greater investment in likes showed more appearance comparison, likes comparison, and facial
dissatisfaction. (Tiggemann, Hayden, Brown & Veldhuise, 2018)
Self-schema and self-discrepancy mediates the influence of Instagram usage on body image
satisfaction among youth” was published by Ahazadeh, Sharif and Ong in 2016 is also worth
mentioning. They were doing research to find out if the use of Instagram has a negative effect on
body satisfaction and how self-esteem and self-discrepancy meditate the effect of instagram usage
on body satisfaction. Online survey was conducted in two private universities in Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia where 103 males and 170 females participated. Participants completed a set of
questionaires including demographic characteristics, Instagram usage and activities related to
Instagram photos.
In the status quo, the researchers show that appearance self-schema positively influences
appearance self discrepancy, and self-schema and self-discrepancy sequentially mediate the
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negative influence of Instagram photo usage on body satisfaction. (Ahadzadeh, Sharif & Ong,
2017)
The pervasive use of social media is a great concern of modern psychologists. Another
study is “Social Comparison as the Thief of Joy: Emotional Consequences of Viewing Strangers’
Instagram Posts” by Vries et al which was published in 2017. In an experiment, they were
investigating the emotional consequences of viewing strangers’ posts on instagram. The experiment
has shown that individual differences and processing tendencies lead people to respond to social
information on social media in opposite ways. 130 participants who received course credit or 5
euros as compensation for their participation. Participants were asked to take a photograph of
themselves with a smartphone and to post it on Instagram after they had viewed positive, neutral, or
selfies by strangers.
The status quo suggests that strangers’ positive Instagram posts decreased positive affect
among individuals with high levels of social comparison orientation, but increased positive affect
among individuals with low levels of social comparison orientation.
As the use and influence of social networking continues to grow, consequences for
psychological well-being has been studied by many researchers. Instagram #Instasad?: Exploring
Associations Among Instagram Use, Depressive Symptoms, Negative Social Comparison and
Strangers Followed was published by Trub and, Rosenthal in 2015. The study examined theatrical
grounded moderated mediation models of the associations between instagram use and depressive
symptoms through the mechanism of negative social comparison and moderation by the amount of
strangers one follows. The final sample was comprised of 117 participants who completed all
measures of interest.
In the status quo, researchers conclude more frequent Instagram use had a marginally
significant direct association with greater depressive symptoms. Contrary to the hypotheses, more
frequent Instagram use was not associated with social comparison. Finally, consistent with the
hypotheses as well as past research on Facebook, more positive social comparison was associated
with less depressive symptoms. (Trub & Rosenthal, 2015)
Overall all these studies were highly relevant to our aims and research. They showed that
studies had social variables as decisive determinants. At the end of the search we decided to select
the best 7 studies in order not to enlarge the study to a wider scope and focus only on the main aims
of our study. In summary, most of the studies show strong support for the negative impact of social
comparison on Instagram users. To date, little study has focused on the association between social
comparison and both positive and negative emotions of users. Not only loneliness and depression
are the sole consequence of social comparison, motivation that leads to positive influence on
Instagram users also needs to be taken into consideration. This study will shed light on how social
comparison increases or decreases self-evaluation that affects their future intentions.
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3. Qualitative Study
In this research, we used the mixed method approaches which is a blend or combination of both
the qualitative and quantitative methods (Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2010). The aim of mixing these
two methods was to better understand the problem, obtain the required data that answer the research
questions about instagram and its effect on an individual’s self- evaluation (Hesse-Biber & Leavy,
2010). In the qualitative method, the data was collected through conducting an interview and the
findings were coded and analyzed thematically while the data in the quantitative study was
collected through using questionnaires and the findings were analyzed through regression, EFA and
ANOVA (see figure 1). As shown below in figure 1, we started with the qualitative method and
then we adopted the quantitative to “eliminate potential design weaknesses” and to provide validity
to the results that we found out and discussed in the first method (Johnson et al. 2007, p.127).
Figure 1: Research Design (own figure)
3.1. Method
At the beginning of our study, we adopted the qualitative method because we wanted to have a
detailed understanding about the problem of the research, and this was established through
“allowing the participants to tell their stories” and express their attitudes and feelings openly in the
in-depth interview about Instagram (Creswell & Poth, 2018, p.48). The qualitative study involved
data collection methods and tools, sample selection method and content analysis. In the following
subsections, we will provide information about the processes and steps that we followed in both the
data collection tools and content analysis of the qualitative data.
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3.1.1. Interview
Interview is one of the qualitative techniques and methods used in market research to “better
understand the complex patterns of human behaviour” (Jobber & Chadwick, 2012, p.235). Thus, to
better obtain insights about instagram and its effect on an individual’s self-evaluation, and to
explore more about their “feelings, attitudes and behaviors” in line with this problem, we conducted
an open interview with the sample that is better described in section 3.2. (Bellenger et al., 2011,
p.7). Before conducting the interview, we decided to design a guideline to direct us on how to start
the interview, what to ask, in what sequence, and how to end the interview. To create a good
guideline and to follow the structure and process used in other researches, we reviewed and used
two literary resources on this basis: “Research interviewing: The range of techniques: A practical
Guide” by Gillham (2005) and “Conducting an-in depth interview” by Guion et al.,(2011) (see
references). The format of the guideline in terms of the sample, content and questions were
determined by the aims of the study. At the beginning, we created a drafted guideline where we
identified the profile of the sample with whom we would conduct the interview, the content for its
introduction and ending, the types of questions that we should ask and the expected duration for
conducting it. Then the guideline was revised by the supervisor, who recommended to delete some
questions that were repetitive and not relevant to the aims of the study. Based on the feedback of the
supervisor, we did the required changes and decided to test it before implementation. The interview
guideline starts with an introduction where the interviewee is thanked for his/her participation and
the interviewer introduces himself/herself to the interviewee. We also refer in the introduction to the
topic of our research, and the expected duration required for conducting the interview. Then we ask
for permission to record the interview and assure the interviewee about the anonymity of his/her
identity.
The interview guideline starts with demographic questions such as name, age, occupation and
gender. After asking the demographic questions, we move to the general questions about Instagram
such as: how often does the interviewee use instagram? What does he/she usually post on
instagram? What is the difference between Instagram and other platforms? What is the motive of
using instagram than other social media platforms?(see the attachment). Following that, the
interviewee is asked detailed questions about Instagram such as: how many followers/following
does the interviewee have? What is his/her feeling when he/she has lots of followers? and other
detailed questions that are related to this problem (see the attachment). The interview ends by
asking the interviewee if he/she has any questions regarding the interview and at the end we thank
him/ her for his/her contribution. After completing the guideline, we decided to conduct a pre-test
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interview to make sure that the questions are quite clear and understood by the participants, and to
check about the sequence of the questions and duration of the interview. Moreover, we wanted to
identify any problems or mistakes and sort them out before conducting an interview with the real
sample. The guideline was tested with a student from HMKW and after conducting the interview
we found out that no changes were required and it was good enough to be used with the real sample
(see the attachment).
3.1.2. Content Analysis
After conducting the interview and completing the transcriptions of all interviews, we worked on
the process of analyzing the content of the qualitative data.To know about the process and steps for
content analysis, we used two literary resources that provide a comprehensive look on this topic.
The first literary resource were the lecture’s notes on market research by Thomas Killian (2019) and
the second one was a journal called “The qualitative content analysis process” by by Elo & Kyngas
(2008). It is also important to point out that we used a software called QDA Miner Lite V2.07 for
coding the transcriptions and creating the coding book of this study. The figure below shows how
we did the coding and content analysis starting from the step of identifying the categories and
ending with the models that were built for this study (see figure 2). In the first cycle of this process,
we went through the first case of our transcripted interviews and highlighted the most important
words, phrases, sentences that express different feelings and opinions of the interviewees and that
are potentially relevant to the main purpose of the study. Thereby, we started with the first
transcription and we came up with different themes under which all these highlighted words,
phrases and sentences appear and created categories and subcategories for all these themes. The
naming of some categorie and themes was derived from the theories and empirical studies that are
used in our research. We used our own naming for some other categories because we could not find
any references to them in the literature review. For example, the naming of social comparison
category was basically derived from the theory of social comparison that was published by
Festinger in 1954. The naming of some themes such as inspiration, narcissism, envy, community,
emotions were derived from those studies that were used in this research and we used our own
naming for other themes such as routines, greed, carelessness based on our interpretation. After
naming the categories, we started to group the themes that are similar and related to each other
under one category and sub-category. For example, we grouped the themes of envy, admiration,
positive and negative influences under the category of social comparison because we observed that
they are related to each other and both reflect the outcome from comparison with others (see section
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3.3.2). We followed the same coding process in the first cycle with all the other cases and then
adding one case after another to the coding book. After completing all cases, we started the second
cycle of this process which was merging the similar categories into one and creating a coding book
for this study. In section 3.3., we will highlight the most important categories that we extracted in
this study and how they are considered as determinants and consequences. Based on the coding
book and the literature reviews referred to in chapter 2, section 2.3., we constructed the models of
our qualitative study that are better discussed in section 3.4. and well presented in figure 4 in that
section.
Figure 2: Coding Process (adapted from Killian, 2019)
3.2. Data Collection and Sample
As mentioned in the previous section, we started our research with the qualitative method. The
basic benefit of a qualitative study was the opportunity to get in depth answers from the
participants, establish and understand their attitudes, behaviors and opinions in a better way (Jobber
& Chadwick, 2012). Thus, the selection of the appropriate sample was an essential step and element
in the qualitative method as it was very important to collect data from participants from whom we
can learn the most and better understand the meaning of a phenomenon from their perspectives
(Merriam & Grenier, 2002). As we did not need a representative sample of the population, a
9

convenience sample technique is used to collect the data for this study. Convenience sample is “the
least rigorous technique, involving the selection of the most accessible subjects” (Marshall, 1996,
p.523). The participants involved in this study were readily available and selected randomly; they
are people from different nationalities, occupations and aged between (21-30) years old and are
identified as active instagram users. In the following figure, it is depicted how the participants were
selected and how the sample was utilized in this study:
Figure 3: Data Collection Process (Own Figure)
The study is basically designed to have ten good interviews at the end and thereby the work was
distributed among the team members to conduct the interview with the sample. Two team members
were responsible for interviewing and transcribing six interviews, three each while two other
members were responsible for conducting and transcribing four interviews, two each. To attain
good results, it was decided that each member should conduct more than the required number of
interviews and select the best ones that serve the aims of our research. To check the clarity of the
questions, the timing needed for conducting the interview and to know whether the questions of the
interview are appropriate, we conducted a pre-test interview before starting with the main
interviews.The pre-test interview was participant number eight as shown in table 1, and the
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interview was conducted in one of the lecture rooms at HMKW university and lasted for (00:26:44
hr). Due to the feedback of the pre-test participant and the supervisor, no changes were required to
be done on the interview guide and hence it was decided to use the pre-test participant in our
sample. Once the interviews were confirmed with the participants, times were set up to do the
interviews. The team members started to conduct the interview with their interviewees in locations
and online channels that were convenient for them: in person, by phone, or by Skype. 15 interviews
were conducted and transcribed and at the end only ten were selected and used in this study. The
gender of the sample was equally distributed with five males and five females, aged ranged between
(21-30). The sample was culturally very diverse with participants from different countries such as
Germany, Brazil, Turkey, Morocco, India, Vietnam, Canada, Columbia, and Nigeria (See table 1).
The below table provides the description of the sample used in this study:
Table1: Sample description
3.3. Result
3.3.1. Overview
As discussed in section 3.2., ten good in-depth interviews with participants from varied cultures,
ages, genders were selected to be used for this study. After analyzing the content for the selected
transcribed interviews and creating the coding book, we extracted categories that are considered as
important findings in this study. Some categories like motivations, social comparison, platform
characteristics, habits, personality and frequency usage were identified as determinants while other
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categories like emotions, future intentions, influence of followers and expected behavior after
posting were identified as the consequences. Based on the aims of our research, we will highlight
the findings in the following subsections with examples in line with the major determinants and
consequences that we extracted and the themes that were grouped under each one of them. We will
also provide an overview of other determinants and consequences that are identified as minor
categories in this study.
3.3.2. Determinants
In this subsection, first we will refer to the major determinants as well as presenting the themes,
descriptions, examples and usage frequency that come in line with each of these determinants. The
first determinant that we extracted was the motivation for using instagram and spending more time
on this platform (see table 2). There are many definitions by researchers for the concept of
motivation. Donald Hebb (1955) refers to it as “a general sense to the energizing of behavior, and
especially to the sources of energy in a particular set of responses that keep them temporarily
dominant over others and account for continuity and direction in behavior” (p.244). As shown
below in table 2, some motivations such as community, inspiration, curiosity, narcissism, and
information have a higher frequency than entertainment and encouragement. In this study, these
categories are categorized as external or internal based on the different reasons or goals that arise
such behavior or action. Internal motivation is defined as doing an activity for the purpose of
inherent satisfactions while external motivation refers to doing an activity for the purpose of
enjoying the activity itself rather than its inherent value (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Our findings show
that some participants are seeking for external motivation such as community, and encouragement
from other users through the likes and comments on their posts while others use instagram to satisfy
their internal needs such as curiosity, inspiration, narcissism, entertainment and information (see
table 2). Among those internal and external factors, community is the highest one in frequency
while encouragement is the lowest one (see table 2). We will illustrate with example those
motivations that are most essential and most related to the aim of this study such as community,
inspiration, narcissism, information and curiosity. Based on the frequency shown in the table below
for all motivations, community seems to be the most primary reason and motivation for using
instagram (see table 2). To give an example is the reply from one of the participants who stated:
“you have your friends and also you can connect to other people..”(see table 2). This shows that
instagram is seen as a forum where the participant can make connections with friends and others,
interact with them and maintain friendship. Inspiration is another motivation for the participants to
use instagram and this is clearly identified in a statement by one of the participants:“I follow people
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