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Back in September, I signed up for an account on Instagram again. For context, I had a profile from early 2015 to mid-2019 and chose to delete it after going through a break-up. I recall feeling quite worn out by the demands of social media by that point, as well. Four years later I came back, owing to a simple reason: for people my age Instagram is the primary way to network and forge connections with people, especially new ones. Giving out our phone number has become forceful and intimate and kick starting a conversation with someone after an event or party via text seems formal yet invasive. Unless we’re texting to arrange something in particular, why message?

Since returning to the app, I noticed that a lot had changed; not just in terms of its design, but its overall aim. What initially struck me was just how aggressively the app started suggesting content, whereas previously it had been pretty intent on connecting me to people I know (or thought I would know). The app almost instantly (and from then on, rather relentlessly) exposed me to a remarkable array of perfect strangers. People who I had no real-world connection with, that it thought I would be interested in seeing. This change, when considered more deeply, seemed to represent a wider shift in the platform’s priorities: of bulldozing you with content over pushing for connection. I also began to question: who actually has agency here? Is Instagram shaping our behaviour or is our behaviour shaping Instagram?

What’s more, I started to consider if the way we narrate our lives via Instagram has also influenced how we do so verbally. Have our everyday interactions come to parallel how we conduct ourselves online? When catching up with friends or family, do we take part in a delicate dance of quick-fire attention grabbing, of commenting (but not really engaging), of editing stories to paint the most attractive image of ourselves as possible?

What might be the effect of this? That we see our conversation partner as a news feed rather than a human being, as a source of entertainment rather than a source of human experience. Is it any wonder that the practice of active listening has become a rarity, when our vision is well and truly saturated? More worryingly, how can we go about forging a true sense of community in the midst of increasing forces of endless distraction and disconnection? Do we actually end up the same way as Instagram: opting for content over connection?