Katherine Streeter
Most people realize it's not healthy to compare themselves to other people-but social media presents abundant opportunities to do exactly that. 
Do you ever feel so-called ' Instagram Envy ' when you see photos of your friends doing things that seem glamorous, exciting and rare? If so, how do you deal with it?
In ' The Agony of Instagram,' Alex Williams describes the glimpses into other people's lives that Instagram offers as 'a new form of torture.'
On Instagram, there is none of the familiar messiness of Facebook (which bought Instagram last year for about $1 billion) or Twitter, where the torrent of wish-you-were-here-but-not-really posts are lost in a clutter of birthday wishes to Aunt Candace, one-liners about airline food and links to the latest Onion headline or New Republic deconstruction of Obamacare.
Instagram, rather, is about unadulterated voyeurism. It is almost entirely a photo site, with a built-in ability (through the site's retro-style filters) to idealize every moment, encouraging users to create art-directed magazine layouts of their lives, as if everyone is suddenly Diana Vreeland.
Mayoli Weidelich, 24, an Internet marketing manager and blogger in Toronto, said she once spent 10 minutes with a friend composing a picture of a margarita glass over a plate of tacos at a Mexican restaurant. The intention was not to show off, Ms. Weidelich said. She was simply following an unspoken rule adopted by Instagram users to avoid populating feeds with unedited, mediocre images.
'My Facebook feed is full of mostly opinionated rants and articles links, neither of which cause any jealousy,' Ms. Weidelich said. 'My Instagram feed, in comparison, is one amazing photo after another.'
Viewers, meanwhile, are expected to let the sumptuous photos wash over them and chip in with comments ('Gorgeous sunset!') and heart-shape 'likes,' which function as a form of social currency, reinforcing the idea that every shot is a performance worthy of applause. The result is an online culture where the ethic is impress, rather than confess.
It is as if every last image is designed to call to mind Norman Mailer's book title, 'Advertisements for Myself.'
Students: Read the entire article, then tell us ...
Do you use Instagram? If so, to what degree do you identify with the ideas described in the article? Do you think people put too much, too little or just enough energy into the way they depict their lives through photos on social media? Explain. Do you ever look forward to events because you know you will post photos afterward? Is there anything wrong with that? The article quotes David Coggins, who says he doesn't think people should post 'trophies,' or photos of expensive things or places few people get to visit. What is your take on this suggestion?
Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.
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