[ad_1]
Breaking News Emails
Receive last minute alerts and special reports. News and stories that matter, delivered the mornings of the week.
By Kalhan Rosenblatt
In mid-April, Gemma McLean noticed that her Instagram account was receiving furtive attention from her ex-boyfriend.
The Instagram Stories feature allows users to see who viewed their posts, and McLean found that his ex-reporter had read his stories for four consecutive days. So she decided to make sure that he knew that she could see her spying.
McLean posted a screen shot in his Instagram account of the TV show "Riverdale" with the following message: "Hey, my message of public interest: if you were my ex, I got found literally in 2012 while I was still in high school: I can see you check my insta daily history. "
This is the tangled web that Instagram users are now weaving through a small feature that has developed a disproportionate impact on the social net.
"My thought process was honestly to make him understand that I could see him being a monster without actually speaking to him in the hope that he would stop," said McLean, 24, who lives in New Zealand. "Nothing like being publicly humbled in lowkey to put yourself in your shoes."
Instagram introduced the stories for the first time in 2016 and more than 500 million users access it daily. Stories allow users to compile images, videos, and text clips throughout the day. These articles are only available for 24 hours, unless users ask to save them.
But stories have a quirk rarely seen in social media. Users typically need to make a conscious decision to view another person's story by tapping the small bubbles that appear at the top of the app, and people who post stories can see which users have chosen to see their posts .
Although this may seem like a small detail, it has given rise to a particular social dynamic, creating a cat and mouse game for users seeking to catch ex, crush, old friends and parents watching their messages. The stories of teenagers and young adults wonder why a certain person, such as the ex-girlfriend of a new boyfriend, looks at their now-common Instagram story on sites like Reddit and Twitter. Others have posted on their enthusiasm when they catch a crush on their stories.
But the functionality of the stories has also been a kind of reality check. For youth who grew up with social media, the stories provided a window into the number of people who see their publications.
McLean said that the Instagram Stories feature gave her a private insight into who viewed what she posts on the platform – not just the one who decides to comment publicly or touch heart.
"It's also convenient to be able to see if unsavory people are curious so that you can take the best possible steps," said McLean, adding that this feature could help identify who she needs to block.
Why we like to watch
The stories first appeared on the Snapchat email app, but were quickly copied by Instagram, Facebook and various other social media platforms.
According to CNBC, the Instagram Stories feature outperformed its competitors, even surpassing Snapchat. While other apps such as Snapchat and Facebook let users know who viewed their stories, Instagram dominated the feature.
Instagram declined to comment to NBC News for this story.
Stories are loved and used religiously, and this has also caused people to change their behavior on the application.
Instagram has already been criticized for its propensity to exacerbate some of the worst social media instincts in human nature, and the reporting feature adds an extra layer to the issue. While the main Instagram feed can play on insecurities and deformed beauty standards, the stories deal with the user's desire to know his exact social status.
According to Pamela Rutledge, director of the Center for Research on Media Psychology, one of the reasons we need to know who is looking is the desire to know where we are in our social world.
"We care about who responds because we give different weighting to who responds," Rutledge said. "By knowing who [the people looking] and by recognizing people, we reinforce the emotional commitment factor. "
Carrie Goldman, author, educator, and speaker, specializes in social networking and bullying prevention, said Carrie Goldman, a dopamine-affected dopamine sufferer.
"When teens publish their stories, the motivation is the dopamine shot that they receive and the reward in their brains when they see people examining it," Goldman said. "It's a direct success with dopamine and it's true for adults as well."
Experts say that the ability to see who is looking at your Instagram story gives teens and young adults an idea of the place they occupy in their social hierarchies.
But some users say it's fun to know who is doing everything in their power to display their content.
McLean, who noticed that her ex-boyfriend was watching her stories, said that she had no plans to block him outright from his page.
"It's really hilarious for me to think that he still thinks of me after all this time," she said.
"Represent me"
When Sophie Evans posted a picture of herself and her partner in her Instagram story in recent weeks, she did more than share an image with friends – she was starting a small social experiment.
Evans, 24, who lives in Wales, was looking for answers to a question about people watching her posts and she noticed that a colleague's ex-girlfriend had watched. This person did not follow Evans and had a private account, leaving Evans to deduce that the ex-girlfriend was manually looking for his account in order to watch his stories.
"I like seeing who's watching me, especially when I know they're not following me on Instagram," Evans said. "I sometimes publish stories deliberately so that I can really see who is watching me and whether he is following me or not."
Imani Gayden, a 24-year-old social worker in Las Vegas, often switches her profile settings between public and private. She said that she had been on Instagram for seven years, but that she recently started using it more.
Gayden said she was very careful about what she published in her story, knowing that some of her family members could see her publications. Instagram recently introduced a feature that allows users to share their stories with "close friends only".
"I want to share what I'm doing but make sure I represent myself," Gayden said.
Evans and Gayden said they checked all the Instagram profiles they had not followed, analyzing the content of a common friend or a remote connection, but Gayden said she was careful not to look at the story. of this person.
"I'm trying not to look at their story because it lets you know I'm on their page," Gayden said.
Evans, on the other hand, said she had seen stories of people she had not followed.
"I know I can be bad at looking at other people's Instagram without following them because I like being curious too sometimes," Evans said.
Evans said she was completely indifferent to knowing that his colleague's ex-girlfriend was watching his messages. She added that if all went well, it became more of a game for her, trying to see what that person will look next.
"Now, I know she's been watching my Instagram, that made me want to post more stories," she said.
[ad_2]
Source link