{"id":3334,"date":"2016-01-03T23:18:17","date_gmt":"2016-01-04T07:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/?p=3334"},"modified":"2016-01-04T09:06:21","modified_gmt":"2016-01-04T17:06:21","slug":"the-instagram-lobster-trap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/03\/the-instagram-lobster-trap\/","title":{"rendered":"The Instagram lobster trap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019re all just a bunch of apes lekking around the water hole, aren\u2019t we? \u201cFacebook,\u201d it\u2019s been <a href=\"http:\/\/kottke.org\/09\/07\/facebook-lobster-trap\">said<\/a>, &#8220;is basically designed like a lobster trap with your friends as bait,\u201d and the same holds for Instagram. You know it\u2019s empty, often stressful calories\u2014but you can\u2019t get away.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m reminded of this hearing <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thisamericanlife.org\/radio-archives\/episode\/573\/status-update?act=1#play\">teenage girls tell This American Life about their Instagram habits<\/a>. Points that stuck out for me:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Time is a big factor. Reactions are expected within minutes. (You can hear relief in the girls\u2019 voices as the first likes roll in.)<\/li>\n<li>Getting 150 likes on a selfie is normal. Nighttime is when you get the most.<\/li>\n<li>Each person posts just a few times per week.<\/li>\n<li>They reflexively like nearly everything in their feeds.<\/li>\n<li>Commenting is more intimate than liking &amp; carries more expectation of reciprocation.<\/li>\n<li>Language choice is super important. There\u2019s tons of repetition of \u201cGorgeous, Pretty, OMG, etc.,\u201d though never \u201cSexy.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Comments are a way to map &amp; judge others\u2019 relationships (who\u2019s commenting, who isn\u2019t).<\/li>\n<li>\u201cIf I didn\u2019t have it, I\u2019d feel like I\u2019m missing so much.\u201d It\u2019s a diagram of where people stand socially. Parsing this is where the most time goes.<\/li>\n<li>The girls will preflight photos (sending them to close friends for review) before posting.<\/li>\n<li>They know it\u2019s shallow, but \u201cIt\u2019s like free candy, so why not?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>\u201cI\u2019m a brand\u2026 Relevance is a big term right now. In middle school we were\u00a0<em>so<\/em>\u00a0relevant!\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Don\u2019t get me wrong\u2014I\u2019ve enjoyed Instagram for 5+ years &amp; would miss it deeply, even if I\u2019m guiltier than I\u2019d like of these pathologies. And still my mind turns endlessly to thinking about ways to foster more genuine, personal, enriching communications. Nobody said would be easy, but the desire is there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019re all just a bunch of apes lekking around the water hole, aren\u2019t we? \u201cFacebook,\u201d it\u2019s been said, &#8220;is basically designed like a lobster trap with your friends as bait,\u201d and the same holds for Instagram. You know it\u2019s empty, often stressful calories\u2014but you can\u2019t get away. I\u2019m reminded of this hearing teenage girls tell [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3334"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3334"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3338,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3334\/revisions\/3338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}