A qualitative exploration into personal psychological agency in Instagram use

Abstract

Instagram is an increasingly popular photography-based social networking platform. Recent studies that seek to understand the impact of engaging with Instagram on the behaviour and wellbeing of users have generated surprisingly conflicting evidence. We argue that in much of the existing research, “using Instagram” is considered a standardised, homogenous, experience, much like watching a TV show or film. The reality is that Instagram supports a wide range of possible experiences for users, who have some agency in shaping that experience. The aim of this study is to better understand the various ways in which Instagram users actively participate, or not, in the shaping and curation of their own Instagram experience. There were 17 participants in this study, 10 females and seven males, with an age range of 18–39 years old, who were recruited through a university mailing list. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and a combination of inductive and deductive thematic analysis was carried out to identify and organise patterns of meaning in the data. Specifically, open-coded interview transcripts were deductively analysed, following Bandura's (2001) framework for classifying the experience of agency, using the organising concepts of; intentionality, forethought, self-reactiveness, and reflection. Our findings, firstly, describe a unique set of aims, motivations, and strategies that participants employed to shape and curate a personal Instagram experience. Secondly, findings suggest that Bandura's framework provides some explanation for the variation in experience reported by our participants. Specifically, while some participants were active agents in their use of Instagram, others were less capable of commanding their experience. Thirdly, agentic practices were not necessarily stable; some participants were active in some areas of Instagram use and passive in others. Their engagement changed with context and mood, and their manner of Instagram use developed considerably over time. Finally, there were observable differences between usage patterns and agentic practices between the older and the younger participants. Our findings indicate that Instagram use is idiosyncratic, complex, and changeable, providing some explanation for why previous studies on the impact of Instagram on wellbeing have often been contradictory.