What I got from the articles this week is how social media is all about appearances, no matter the platform. I thought it was really interesting to read about two completely different platforms (snapchat and instagram) and compare them. The key takeaways I got were that snapchat is a seemingly “private” social media platform while instagram is a very public platform. Although the two platforms vary in publicity, they both perpetuate a false reality. On instagram, people often only show the highlights of their lives and try to curate a refined and happy image. Although pictures often tell a more robust story than just words or fleeting images, the posts shared are curated to look perfect. In contrast, snapchat offers seemingly candid shots that disappear after a few seconds. Users can also type message that automatically delete after the recipient reads them. Snapchat seems like it would offer more insight into a person’s life, but because the images are temporary, often speculation can arise. Since users cannot go back to the pictures and chats to really analyze them, they create rumors about the fleeting images or messages and a false reality arises.
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Right, and it’s really interesting how the Snapchat researchers demonstrate that in spite of its apparent “privacy”, Snapchat actually becomes a vehicle for public shaming, which is discussed as part of the #1 public conversation of a particular social group.
It is then impossible to talk about privacy even in this supposedly private medium.: social media, then, are fundamentally constitutive of certain publics.