**TL;DR Instagram is dying because it has become too superficial, it promotes a ‘fake’ lifestyle encouraged by the influencers on the app**. I love the concept of Instagram – a place where you are able to show photos of your life to friends and family. However, in recent years, Instagram has increasingly become an app to show off and promote a falsely perfect life. This has made Instagram less fun and is making the app dying. An influencer is defined as being ‘a person with the ability to influence potential buyers of a product or service by promoting or recommending the products on social media.’ They edit their pictures and create an illusion to their followers that they have a perfect lifestyle. Everything is presented as being so flawless. This image of perfection can have a really negative effect on the users of the app, particularly regarding body image. The BBC found that a systemic review of 20 papers published in 2016 found that photo-based activities (primarily scrolling through images on Instagram) were a cause for people to have negative thoughts about their bodies. A survey of 227 female university students, found that they tend to compare their own appearances with their peer group and celebrities, which causes them to negatively view themselves. They also judge themselves as being worse off, wondering why their lives are not as perfect as those they see on social media. The toxicity of Instagram on body image is one of the reasons why Instagram is a dying app. People are realising the negative consequences of the app and are choosing to delete it; this was particularly accelerated after Netflix released ‘The Social Dilemma’ in 2020. WORKS CITED: Oakes Kelly, ‘The complicated truth about social media and body image’ (12 March 2019), https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190311-how-social-media-affects-body-image

**TL;DR – Instagram is known as one of the biggest photo and video social networking applications out there. Yet, there's a misconception that interest in the app might actually be dying. Especially in light of other similar applications on the market and newer ones most likely to emerge in the future. Well, there’s no need to worry since Instagram is still widely popular and very much relevant.** According to Brent Barnhart (2021), a professional writer and content critic, Instagram, “…is perhaps the most rapidly-evolving across all of social media.” Furthermore, Instagram is known for its devoted user base and this can be found in the following statistics Barnhart provides for us: Towards the end of 2020, Instagram surpassed the 1 billion global user market with recent social media demographics indicating a mostly female user base (34.3%), under the age of 34. And although older users can also be found making use of the app, Instagram is still mostly dominated by Gen Z and Millennials. What’s more, in this same year data from Sensor Tower revealed that Instagram was amongst the top 5 most-downloaded apps, in both the App Store and via Google Play. Also, as of January 2020 the app is second to TikTok in the App Store in terms of downloads (occasionally competing with Facebook). Also interesting, is that 63% of Americans say they check Instagram daily, while in Australia the average Instagram user spends at least 7 hours per week on the platform. Evidently, Instagram’s user growth is steady and consistent. Particularly, among the youth, which is clearly as a result of its dedicated users – in terms of how frequently they log in. So while recent Instagram statistics tell us that its organic engagement has fallen since 2020, the app still shows no signs of slowing down. And this, if nothing else, is in fact a testament to it’s staying power. The most important Instagram statistics you need to know for 2021 https://sproutsocial.com/insights/instagram-stats/ [accessed March 4, 2021].

**TL;DR – It feels like there is an encouragement to make posts presentable and upbeat even with information that should be very deliberate. Authenticity lives at both ends – extremely deliberate posts or extremely personal posts.** Instagram is an inherently positive app. Even double tapping a post to like it is marked by the little heart that pops up symbolizing interest, love, and devotion to an account. Posts tend to go viral because of this spreading of positivity. It’s visually motivated, so it’s easy to get caught up in the presentation of your posts and how you make them appealing. I think a lot about the way this can hide facts and meaning inadvertently though! When a lot of the recent social justice protests started, Instagram was full of infographics, facts, and evidence to inform people about these situations. I found myself confused when some of the posts I saw were not very deliberate with their information and were more for the look and design. It was pointless to me. It feels like there is an encouragement to make posts extremely presentable and upbeat even with information that should be very deliberate. I definitely enjoy my fair share of art and design, but with the amount of power Instagram has, it should be used as more than a fun loving platform. If not, then I personally love the idea of making your Instagram account so personal to you that it’s basically only a portfolio or a journal of sorts. I think authenticity lives at both ends. What Instagram is beginning to foster is a certain hostility towards some posts (you can even call me out on my obvious hypocrisy here) and I think that’s what’s going to make it die if it eventually comes to that. It’s no longer social, but rather maintains a hierarchy of interests. This is a mixed argument for me because I really believe Instagram has reached wonderful heights for social media over the years and there is a lot of personality in its upbeat nature, but there is an undertone of vulnerability in it that is emphasized by the misrepresentation of ideas that simply can’t be taken any differently.

**TL;DR: Although a great tool for marketing, the casual use of Instagram is declining.** Looking at statistics alone, Instagram is not a dying app. [Statistics show] (https://www.socialfilms.co.uk/blog/instagram-uk-statistics#:~:text=brands%20they%20follow-,How%20many%20people%20use%20Instagram%20in%20the%20UK%3F,with%20other%20social%20media%20sites.) that in June 2020, Instagram had 30.6 million active users in the UK alone, compared to 24 million users in 2019. However, I feel as though the reason people may say Instagram is 'dying' is due to the way that it is used. As someone who has had Instagram since the very beginning, I've definitely noticed a big change in the type of posts shared. It used to be used as an extension of our camera rolls, used to share pictures with our friends, our food pictures and pets. Now, Instagram seems to be very focused on polished images, as a result of growing influencer culture in recent years. A lot of my friends agree that posting on Instagram is 'daunting', they feel as though it is an app that is all about social status and for this reason they barely use it anymore and find themselves gravitating towards Twitter and Tiktok. I think Instagram is still a great tool for branding and the influence that it has on our shopping habits is tremendous. However, I don't know how much longer it will last as a causal app for posting pictures and keeping in touch with friends.