Capitalism's Effect on Social Media

Why Instagram's new update is a direct effect of capitalism and how it's hurting the platform's target audience.

Instagram is one of the few social media apps that have found a way to stay relevant for about a decade, being the 4th most downloaded app of the 2010s with well over a billion users. The platform was initially for sharing and posting photos, which was unique for its time of release. However, with every update, the app seems to have lost focus on it’s original purpose, which might be causing their popularity to dwindle. Here’s why Instagram changing its algorithm is a direct effect of capitalism.

As technology progresses and becomes more a part of our society’s everyday lives, the line between watching an advertisement and watching content begins to blur. Media, originally created to be a form of mass communication and even entertainment, has turned into a marketing tool. Even scarier than constantly being marketed to, whether you know it or not, is that this mind-numbing structure of consumerism works with people, not against them. In an article about how social media companies purposely design their smartphone apps to be addictive, Insider writes:

Attention is currency; the more time spent on the app, the more advertising revenue for these big name companies.

Late June in 2019, head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri announced, “Instagram will no longer be a photo-sharing app,” explaining the platform will now focus on “full screen, immersible, entertaining, mobile-first video”. And of course, naming TikTok and YouTube as its competitors. Lots of independent artists and creators that use Instagram to share their work were devastated, I included, because there are very few popular photo-sharing platforms. Instagram neglected its target audience and denounced its original purpose, rather than enhance what made it so popular in the first place: photos and editing. Following the trend and copying video-centered platforms because they wanted a quick cash grab.

This isn’t the first time Instagram has changed as a direct form of capitalism either. Before the announcement in 2019, the app altered its interface, hiding the post tab in favor of putting the shopping tab front and center. All these changes only benefit the advertisers and keep money flowing in the big name company’s pockets. So next time you open your phone, take a closer look at your favorite app’s interface. Is the first thing you see an ad?