In February 2011, it was reported that Instagram had raised $7 million (equivalent to $9,601,662 in 2024) in Series A funding from a variety of investors, including Benchmark Capital, Jack Dorsey, Chris Sacca (through Capital fund), and Adam D’Angelo. On October 6, 2010, the Instagram iOS app was officially released through the App Store. In April 2012, Facebook acquired the service for approximately US$1 billion in cash and stock. Users can take photos and edit them using built-in filters and other tools, then share them on other social media platforms like Facebook.
Features and tools
However, Brailovskaia & Margraf 2018 found a significant positive relationship between Instagram membership and extraversion, life satisfaction, and social support. Since 2017, Instagram has employed the ability to reduce the prominence of accounts ("shadowbanning") it believes may be generating non-genuine engagement and spam (including excessive use of unneeded hashtags), preventing posts from https://caledonianoyster.co.uk/ appearing in search results and in the app’s Explore section. Instagram said the algorithm was designed so that users would see more of the photos by users that they liked, but there was significant negative feedback, with many users asking their followers to turn on post notifications in order to make sure they see updates. In April 2016, Instagram began rolling out a change to the order of photos visible in a user’s timeline, shifting from a strictly chronological order to one determined by an algorithm.
Users are more likely to engage with images that depict fewer individuals compared to groups and they are also more likely to engage with content that has not been watermarked, as they view this content as less original and reliable compared to user-generated content. While Instagram may appear to be one of the most widely used sites for photo sharing, only 7% of daily photo uploads, among the top four photo-sharing platforms, come from Instagram. This grew to 150 million in August 2011, and by June 2023, there were over 50 billion photos uploaded to the service. After being released in October 2010, Instagram had one million registered users in December 2010.
Photographic filters
A 2021 study by Büttner & Rudertb showed that not being tagged in an Instagram photo triggers the feeling of social exclusion and ostracism, especially for those with higher needs to belong. Tiggermann et al. showed facial satisfaction can decrease when one spends greater time editing selfies. Multiple studies have found that increasing time spent on Instagram increases anxiety. Lub & Trub 2015 showed that following more strangers increases social comparisons and depressive symptoms. In a 2021 study, Mun & Kim pointed out users with a strong need for approval were more likely to falsely present themselves, which increased the likelihood of depression.
Instagram Reels
- When I log in my account for the first time after reinstalling the app everything works fine but as soon as I close the app and open it again nothing works anymore.
- In June 2017, Instagram announced that it would automatically attempt to filter offensive, harassing, and "spammy" comments by default.
- Call us for pizza delivery in Clarksville or stop by 8188 HWY 15 for carryout to order the best pizza in Clarksville, along with breadsticks, wings, and more!
- In 2016, Olivia Solon, a reporter for The Guardian, posted a screenshot to her Instagram profile of an email she had received containing threats of rape and murder towards her.
In May 2017, a survey conducted by the United Kingdom’s Royal Society for Public Health, featuring 1,479 people aged 14–24 and asking them to rate social media platforms depending on anxiety, depression, loneliness, bullying and body image, concluded that Instagram was the "worst for young mental health". In 2015, Instagram was named No. 1 by Mashable on its list of "The 100 best iPhone apps of all time", noting Instagram as "one of the most influential social networks in the world." Instagram was listed among Time’s "50 Best Android Applications for 2013" list. The Cuban government blocked access to several social media platforms, including Instagram, to curb the spread of information during the 2021 Cuban protests.
A Meta spokesperson explained, "We have fixed an error that caused some users to see content in their Instagram Reels feed that should not have been recommended. We apologize for the mistake." On February 26, 2025, Instagram Reels came under fire after numerous users reported a sudden surge in violent and graphic content appearing in their feeds. It functions similarly to the Chinese video service TikTok, focusing on allowing users to create short videos already set to existing sounds from other clips. IGTV allows uploads of up to 10 minutes in length with a file size of up to 650 MB, with verified and popular users allowed to upload videos of up to one hour in length with a file size of up to 5.4 GB.
Citing misinterpretations about its intention to "communicate that we’d like to experiment with innovative advertising that feels appropriate on Instagram", Systrom also stated that it was "our mistake that this language is confusing" and that "it is not our intention to sell your photos". The move garnered severe criticism from users, prompting Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom to write a blog post one day later, announcing that they would "remove" the offending language from the policy. In 2019, Apple pulled an app which let users stalk people on Instagram by scraping accounts and collecting data. However, the following month, more details emerged, with a group of hackers selling contact information online, with the affected number of accounts in the "millions" rather than the previously assumed limitation on verified accounts. The video only contained fan-submitted Instagram photographs that used various filters to represent words or lyrics from the song, and over 1,200 different photographs were submitted. On August 9, 2012, English musician Ellie Goulding released a new music video for her song "Anything Could Happen".
Instagram said that this is to prevent abuse and so that hashtags do not help users gain views, but it has been noted that using hashtags is the only free method for a user to reach past their existing followers. In 2022 this was again tested on some users, and in April 2023 the ability to search recent hashtags was removed entirely. In August, Instagram announced that it would start organizing comments into threads, letting users more easily interact with replies.
In March 2021, a feature was added that prevents adults from messaging users under 18 who do not follow them as part of a series of new child safety policies. In April 2020, Direct became accessible from the Instagram website, allowing users to send direct messages from a web version using WebSocket technology. In May, Instagram made it possible to send website links in messages, and also added support for sending photos in their original portrait or landscape orientation without cropping.
2019: IGTV, removal of the like counter, management changes
The study proved addiction to Instagram negatively affected academic performance. Sanz-Blas et al. 2019 showed that users who feel they spend too much time on Instagram report higher levels of "addiction" to Instagram, which was related to higher levels of stress induced by the app. The hashtag #letthembelittle contains over 10 million images related to children on Instagram. The study reported evidence of online posts affecting offline behavior, but stopped short of claiming causality. Their study showed only a marginally significant negative association between Instagram membership and self-conscientiousness.