Is Instagram Actually Over?
New data on Gen Z provides an unseen lens into Instagram's future.
On November 30th, The Atlantic published a piece titled “Instagram Is Over”.
The article begins with a conversation between Gen Z’ers on the New York City subway:
“Does she have Instagram?” one asked, before adding with a laugh: “Does anybody?”
“I don’t even have it on my phone anymore,” the other confessed.
Yet new data on Gen Z screen time tells a different story:
Instagram is not over. It may never have been stronger than it is today.
Inside Gen Z’s Instagram Use
On Monday, December 5th, dcdx will release the 2nd Annual Gen Z Screen Time Report, a compilation of full, raw videos of the iPhone screen time setting recorded and submitted by a network of Gen Z’ers in October 2022.
A few things we know about Gen Z’s Instagram use from the report:
1. Instagram remains Gen Z’s most used app, 2 years running.
The average Gen Z’er is spending 6 hours and 14 minutes per week on Instagram, with 94% of young people this year displaying Instagram as a Top 10 most-used app. In fact, of that 94%, more than half had Instagram in their top 2 most-used apps.
2. Daily pickups of Instagram are at all-time highs.
Average pickups (the number of times the phone is opened to open Instagram) are up +48% year over year at 15 pickups per day. And this seems to show no sign of reversing. Young Gen Zers (15-20 years old, compared to “older Gen Z” at 21 to 27 years old) are picking Instagram up 18 times a day, compared to older Gen Z’ers at 11 per day.
Why is Instagram use so high?
Perhaps no better example exists of Instagram’s use and power with Generation Z than yesterday’s release of Spotify Wrapped. Once a year, Instagram turns into the epicenter of activity for Gen Z, with one specific feature being used: the Instagram story.
Ask any young Instagram user, and they will tell you the same thing: nearly every single story on November 30th was a screenshot/sharing of Spotify Wrapped. Wrapped screenshots do not go in the feed, and rarely come up in Reels. Their home is the Story, and Spotify has designed Wrapped exactly for this.
Why did the Instagram Story become the home for Spotify Wrapped?
1. Ease of distribution
In one click, the community of people you curate and allow into your life (your followers) can see what is important to you. In the Instagram feed, posts get buried amid the endless scroll. Stories, on the other hand, do come to an end - and that is critically important to their success.
2. Lack of permanence
The Instagram profile for Gen Z is a curated and digital representation of life. This is part of the reason BeReal took off - it was an opportunity to remove the filters and fakeness that can be represented in a profile. Yet at the same time, this highly intentional curation serves a purpose. It is like a personal LinkedIn - serving to new acquaintances as an easy way to understand someone’s current and previous life without knowing them at all. “Stalking” someone’s Instagram, a phrase commonly used by Gen Z’ers, really just means getting to know them…albeit without talking to them. Do they have a partner? Where do they live now? Where have they been recently? Who do they care about most?
Because the Instagram story is not permanent, it takes the pressure off of the curation. While Snap deserves the credit for this, first coming up with both the story and the Snap (which disappeared after opening), Instagram successfully stole and mastered the impermanent Story.
After 24 hours, the Story is gone - and just like that, there becomes a reason to open the app and check what Stories are new.
3. Enabling conversations
The Instagram story enables and facilitates intimate 1:1 conversations at scale. A simple message below the story can start a 1:1 private conversation.
Because the story is distributed to your entire community, a well-done story can immediately turn into 10+ 1:1 conversations at once. Where else can that happen?
Even Adam Mosseri, the Head of Instagram, said this is how Instagram is being used most:
I recently spoke to Alonzo Nieves, a 23-year-old Gen Z’er in New Zealand and the Founder of eVouch, a new tool built to capture the power of Instagram Stories for brands. I asked Alonzo why he thought Spotify Wrapped was shared so unanimously on Instagram vs other platforms. Here’s what he said:
I think that the ephemeral nature of Instagram Stories means that people have used it essentially as a reflection of their life today, as it is right now. With music forming a core part of many people's identities it's no surprise that people would post their Spotify Wrapped on their story.
If Instagram is not over, is it changing?
Most certainly, yes. This summer’s pushback from celebrities like Kylie Jenner, Chrissy Teigen, and many others to “Make Instagram Instagram Again” was a sentiment shared far and wide among users.
Feeds overloaded with Reels and recommended content from accounts nobody followed led to a massive uproar among users. Instagram had, according to Adam Mosseri, also been testing a full-screen feed appearance.
Thankfully after all of the feedback, Instagram seemed to listen. Or at least they gave users the option to take control back of their feed.
The change in Instagram seems to actually be returning to its original use - to connect and share photos from your life with your friends. The Atlantic article claims “The app’s original purpose has been lost in the era of “performance” media.” But the opposite seems to be true - its original purpose is returning, it has just taken the form of the Instagram story.
Amid the chaos that is currently the social media landscape, Instagram has never been stronger. As Snap’s users age off the platform, Twitter is on the verge of a breakdown, layoffs and economic troubles brew, BeReal threatens, and TikTok dominates, Instagram seems to only grow stronger in use with Gen Z.
Interested in seeing how much time Gen Z’ers spent per day on TikTok in 2022? How often Snap is being used by Gen Z, and what may be taking its place?
The 2nd Annual Gen Z Screen Time Report from dcdx is set to release for early access sign-ups on December 5th, 2022.