This Week I began collecting relevant sources related to my research. This proved to be slightly challenging at first as there were not many studies done specifically on Instagram use but more on overall social media use amongst young adults. One of the studies I found is A Tale of Four Platforms: Motivations and Uses of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat Among College Students? by Saleem Alhabash and Mengyan Ma. This study specifically looks at the uses and gratification (U&G) approach to contrast the use of four social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. This study focuses on eight different motivations for college students’ use of these apps: Information sharing, self-documentation, social interaction, entertainment, passing time, self-expression, medium appeal, and convenience. Alhabash and Ma conducted a cross-sectional survey of college students recruited through a student subject pool at Michigan State University. One of the key survey results was that participants spent the greatest amount of time on Instagram and Snapchat. Students were primarily motivated to use all four social media apps for entertainment and convenience purposes. More specifically, students were most motivated to use Instagram for convenience, medium appeal, passing time, self-expression, self-documentation, social interaction, and information sharing. I was most curious about the multitude of ways students are motivated to use instagram. Instagram was one of the top used apps amongst students in this study which leads me to believe that students see it as valuable too or part of their everyday life. This research creates more questions for myself about what constitutes as social interaction and how college students might define this. As online platforms like instagram create new ways to communicate I start to wonder if physical social interactions will be less valued, especially between young adults.
The data I have found this week has made me curious about what my participants primary motivations for using instagram are and if there are shifts in motivations during there time at college. I am currently having a harder time finding more peer reviewed articles that touch specifically on instagram and plan to meet with Beth Hope to get more advice on next steps in research.