Profiles on social media accounts suggest a chronology – yet one sees numerous discontinuous postings. Based on the observation of Instagram accounts, this article will first look at the types in which discontinuity is evident and then focus on the motivations for it, among them the striving for variety and at the same time regularity in postings to please the followers, but also the expression of partial identities, the understanding of the account as personal, rewritable diary, the connection to the own past, and the composition of the personal timeline according to one’s own stream of consciousness. The article moves on taking into acco
Social media; Instagram; Photography; Selfportraiture; Linearity; Discontinuity
The chronology is not chronological – the order of photographs in personal accounts on social media does not follow a linear order that corresponds to the chronological sequence, but is often rather bent and twisted, sometimes circular, sometimes seems to have time lapses. This is particularly noticeable with postings that are based on photographs: even if it is not indicated by the account holder one can figure out that there is no clear chronology when e.g. looking at the entire or lager parts of the profile. This article deals with three aspects: First, it shows how discontinuity can be detected. Then, the focus is on motivations, i.e. the question of why people do not always structure their personal account chronologically as suggested by the mere term “ timeline ” and by the order in which pictures are shown. Thereafter, the question arises of how the discontinuity could affect the actors in social media and ultimately, the wider parts of the society.
Social media such as Instagram can be understood as “highly interactive platforms via which individuals and communities share, co-create, discuss, and modify user-generated content. Given the tremendous exposure of social media in the popular press today, it would seem that we are in the midst of an altogether new communication landscape” [1]. Probably it’s most striking and typical feature is that – opposed to most “traditional” media – the content is generated by the users themselves, all of them can be producer and/or recipient.
In social media, people communicate through their usernames, photographs, and other information that they provide about themselves [2]. There is great heterogeneity in the way users are community-oriented and how they enact roles and construct meanings [3]. Frequently, people connect with others they know only casually or not at all, but have found them through hashtags etc. – however, even thin social bond can be also beneficial [4]. Sometimes a lot of information is disclosed by users, which might make them appear more credible, but at the same time puts them at risk, e.g. for identity theft: “As a result, users are motivated to learn an SNS’s privacy norms so that they know how much to disclose to appear likable while avoiding the risks of overdisclosure” [5]. For successful communication – achieving the goals one has in mind – some social media literacy is necessary.
Together with many other studies [6,7], this article is based on the uses and gratifications approach. According to Jan Kietzmann et al. [1], social media serve various functions: they help to show presence, to share content, to build relationships, to communicate identity, to engage in conversations, to form groups, and to work on individual or group-related reputation. Aqdas Malik et al. [8], provide an overview of previous studies and show which factors underlie the use of social networking services, including affection seeking, attention seeking, disclosure, entertainment, habitual past-time, information sharing, social influence, and social interaction. Following Sheth et al. [9] categories of values that influence the consumer choice behaviour, Petri Hallikainen distinguishes a.o. the social value (if the user acquires value from associating with social groups and maintains one’s social images through the platforms), the emotional value (if desired emotions are aroused), and the epistemic value (if the use arouses curiosity, provides novelty or knowledge) [10].
As a result, it can be said that social media should be valuable for its users and that, in consequence, the users are motivated to take part in them. Several of the values Kietzmann, Hallikainen, and Malik mention relate more to the situation of reception or production. The following observation inevitably relates more to the role of the account holder than to his or her followers, however, both influence each other and every account holder is most probably also a follower of others.
The considerations are based on observations on Instagram, since this is a particularly image-based medium. We started a new profile and followed 30 accounts with free access to make sure that the account holders aim at a wider public and that no ethical dilemma arises. To select these profiles, we took the list of most common given names in Europe on Wikipedia and looked for male and female names popular in Austria, France, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland, since these are big European countries and we are familiar with the languages spoken in there. As for the United Kingdom, Wikipedia distinguished various areas, which made it more difficult to select names. However, the popularity of a name does not necessarily mean that the account holders originate in these countries and only few people indicated their home country or city in their profile.
Since the list published on Wikipedia refers to rather new surveys, our sample is probably comparably young, but as statistics show, Instagram is anyway more popular among young users [11]. The account holders mostly did not indicate their age, but it is assumable that they were between around 18 and 45 years old, probably most of them between 18 and 30 years. 15 account holders were women, 15 men.
The accounts we considered had between about 200 and 150,000 followers and evolved around the account holders themselves, such as their travels, their clothing styles, tattoos, hairstyles, handicrafts, etc. Consequently, they deal with the life of the person in question or at least the aspects of her life that she would like to disclose in public. We did not select accounts dealing with political or highly current topics, or that were very commercial. At least two third of the pictures should show the person herself, since a person’s life should be in focus. It turned out that none of the accounts was exclusively devoted to one topic, but usually covered several connected to the person’s life.
We looked back on the last around 100 pictures posted by the person. We did not consider stories because stories are often used to either communicate immediately with the followers or try to popularize to photographs posted in the profile (Table 1).
Table 1: The chart shows which topics were treated by the accounts.
These topics cover typical areas of life that have visual features and therefore can be easily photographed. Social desirability may also play a role in the selection of topics, since most account holders also have potential followers in mind. However, it should be kept in mind that this touch of “ quantitative ” analysis still implies a qualitative judgement [12]: therefore, we can neither guarantee if our selection is representative nor that in our interpretation, we have always hit the topic meant by the account holder.
Due to their ubiquity, social media are said to be “ an unmatched resource for research ” [13], especially, as “ important resources for those who study geographically disparate or hard to reach populations” [14]. Around 50% of the profiles in the sample used English text, however, some of them were not native speakers. As mentioned, few indicated their country or city. Therefore, more extensive quantitative surveys would be needed to make any connections between the origin of the account holder and the frequency of discontinuity.
To gain further insights, we later contacted the account holders and sent short surveys. These surveys were answered by seventeen of the account holders. This relatively low number can be explained in various ways: eventually our messages were filtered as spam or the people did not have time to answer. Maybe, they also found the topic a bit sensitive as posting discontinuously could be interpreted as inauthentic – even though we guaranteed them anonymity.