Uses, Perceptions and Impacts of Instagram: A Study with Young Higher Education Students

Abstract

Given the evidence that young people have a very active presence on social networks, especially Instagram (Kemp, 2022), it is important to study this phenomenon and understand what drives young people to use this social network to share content, especially photos and audiovisual content. The study presented was guided by the following research questions: What is Instagram used for by university students? How does Instagram impact and influence youth perceptions regarding everyday life? From a methodological perspective, the case study resorted to a mixed methodology. Data was collected through a questionnaire and a focus group from undergraduate students from a public higher education institution in Portugal. The study collected data from 89 respondents, mostly female and aged between 19 and 22. The results revealed that Instagram is one of their favourite social networks and is where they spend the most time daily, mainly to keep in touch with friends and family and find new content. Participants affirmed that they don't use social media to feel accepted, validated or integrated. This shows that they use social media to reinforce what they already know and feel through the feedback they receive from shared content. Even though most state that they don't engage in getting likes, comments or reactions on their shared content, the participants in the study admit that this is a consequence and are happy with the feedback they receive. The study, although limited to a sample of students from a single higher education institution, enabled the researchers to understand better some engagement habits that currently take up little under one-fourth of the users’ daily time while awake. The sheer fact that users spend so much time on this social media platform daily, sometimes with little or no positive impact on other activities, has already been outlined as an issue worth tackling in future studies.