Impacts of stories in Instagram,Facebook and WhatsApp
A quick case study about the story feature in major social media platforms and their impacts on the society.
Stories are the new trend in social media.They tend to be addictive.They show off quickly.They also have much greater impacts in teenagers these days.The following is my opinion regarding the story mode.
The story feature was introduced by Snapchat but later they got inherited by tech giant Facebook into their family of apps.Called as stories in Facebook and Instagram and as status in Whatsapp.What’s the big deal?
Stories are the modern smartphone way of socializing.They are quick to post.They don’t have the famous ‘like’ feature of traditional social media.This reduces the pressure in the people’s mind about the quality of the content being posted.Thus proving to be a really fun way to connect with others.
Main features of stories include, they are only visible for 24 hours and there is no like button. This makes them really interesting and fun so that people can easily snap and share for which their friends can comment. This makes up the name Snapchat.
Though they seem fun and engaging, the real ill-effect is they are insanely addictive.People nowadays want to snap everything and share them as stories. After the acquisition of this feature in Facebook and Instagram, the usage of this feature skyrocketed, leading to millions of young individuals losing their privacy. However the young generation is not concerned about this because it allows instant updates about their life.
The Impacts:
I have seen some folks sharing more than 200 updates a day as stories.From the morning routine to bed they post everything as story but they dare not post 200 photos in a day to Facebook or Instagram. This is insane addiction. It’s like the phone is glued to the hands.
- Stories have become a really great time wasters. When a boy uploads a story,he receives some comments regarding those stories and he has to reply to those.Once every comments have been replied, the boy is not satisfied,he wants even more attention and posts another story which is just a random picture captured in his phone and waits for others to comment on his new story to which the boy replies.This cycle goes on.
- These days, several youngsters want to get attention quickly and stories are a really simple way to grab attention.That’s the major reason for their quick success.They do prison the individuals inside their phone inside their stories.
- They just increase the restlessness among the individuals and makes them stare at the social media screens all the time.This is just the case with all of social media however the story feature has greatly increased it.
The Reception:
Since this is such a young feature, there is a huge hype around this feature. It is also really interesting to observe how this is going to evolve because of the massive reception amongst youngsters.
The regular media posting feature of traditional social media was widely accepted and also is widely criticized. It has proven effects in the psychological behaviour of individuals.It increased the mental pressure to always look beautiful and great in all the photos just to increase the likes.
Story feature has been massively adopted amongst all the youngsters of the world and has proved to be extremely profitable.
Conclusion:
Stories changed those scenarios and they seem to be the way for the future of social media.How this is going to evolve and how this insane addiction on stories by youngsters is going to affect the future society is a critical scenario to be observed.Thank you.
Addiction begins with the hope that something “out there” can instantly fill up the emptiness inside.
-Jean Kilbourne
