Why Is Instagram So Addictive? @PSFK

Full disclosure: our appreciation and love for Instagram is still strong. With 5 Million users (on the iPhone-only platform) at last count, the photo-sharing app continues to captivate users, brands and media properties alike. Granted, the latter two are still just starting to experiment and determine what role it can best play in their communications strategy.  And we have not yet seen any user engagement/user metrics, i.e., how much time users are spending on the platform to date, how many photos are submitted on a daily/weekly basis by the average users, how has this increased/decreased over time, etc.). But the fact that Instagram continues to represent a significant opportunity is clear.

On the note of engagement, our curiosity was caught by a recent piece by The Next Web, informing us of a Cambridge University student’s 80-page dissertation analyzing how Instagram has become the phenomenon it has become. Master’s candidate Zachary McCune spent over 4 months examining the behavior of those that use the app (observation), conducting open-ended surveys, as well as conducting ethnographic research at a London ‘InstaMeet.’ While his observations and insights are detailed in the full dissertation itself, we can cull some key findings from his executive summary: continue via Why Is Instagram So Addictive? @PSFK.