Instagram and Technological Determinism

The perspective I found most correlating to the “Prom Queen” article was technological determinism. The way I came to understand this term through Baym’s explanation was that newer and modern technology is better than the old. Of course technology can help us, but in this sense I see it as restricting and altering our social interactions. “She has so many followers because people seem to be obsessed with seeing how rich young women live and seem to have flawless lives.” Instagram has become one of the many new ways to interact with family, relatives, friends, and celebrities and now complete strangers. Overall, one can see that Hymowitz views Instagram as the be-all and end-all of social media.

One of the parts that stood out to me most was the way that the author described Homywitz’s Instagram profile as “liberating and terrifying”. I would completely agree with this. Every part of Hymowitz’s life is documented and seen by thousands and thousands of people. Now it may seem liberating in the sense that she shows everyone how much freedom she has but it is terrifying that she seems cares so much about it. She seems to think that Instagram is such a great App but much like Facebook, the popularity and appeal of Instagram will die down once a new app or technology is created. I see it as a perfect example of technological determinism because she is using this technology to portray her life. Fifteen years ago if you want to do that you would have had a use a disposable camera which create photos that are time biased. Instagram has created the ability for photos to be space and time biased. Somehow and someway once that new app comes out Hymowitz will have to start all over again, but with quite the following already stemmed over from Instagram.