I enjoy it and use it in a limited capacity. I have a handful of close friends and immediate family on it and it's a great way to share photos with each other for things we aren't there for (kid birthday or recital or whatever) and vacations and such. For me, it doesn't have the same feel as Facebook, and for my crowd, it's not about likes an how many followers we can amass.

I do also look up various topics I'm interested in like container gardens, quilt ideas, going grey, and such.

There is so little activity in my Instagram feed that I don't even need to check it every day, but there certainly is enough out there that I could spend hours looking at if I choose to....it really comes in handy when I'm waiting to see the doctor or while having my oil changed!

Holy mackerel, Rita!!! Those two IG accounts you shared are sublime, indeed.

All those pictures remind me of Tumblr blogs and I think that's why I don't want to join. They're too carefully "curated" for me. I mean, all that pretty hurts. :) It's one thing for me to leaf through a beautiful coffee table book on design, travel, fashion, decor, etc. It's another for me to see a singular person's account of these converging worlds. Maybe I fear I'll get too envious? Not sure because beauty inspires and I can see beauty in the mundane but...these types of accounts...I don't know. There's something about it all that seems a bit too inaccessible or "perfect" for me and I don't like that. A book is a group effort and I've an idea of all the steps required for it to come to fruition. These IG accounts with their filtered pics...it's like aspirational lifestyle on steroids. Can't handle it. :P

I like Instagram - I have 4 or 5 friends who I follow and I have a grand total of 3 people who follow me (my brother, my DD and my GF). So it is very easy to manage. Yes the ads are annoying but I don't open any, I just click to hide them.

For family stuff we use "whatsapp", but for our dog I use IG! My daughter started an IG for her cat so I followed suit and it's a hoot. Would never have done this when working, but I have plenty of time now to follow other breed-specific dogs.

My daughter's dog Otis has an IG account. He's a hoot, a big lummox with one brown eye and one blue, like a White Walker.

Bunny, we may never have grandchildren if this is what our daughters do.

Tartan, those feelings of envy are very common among IG users. Every single thing you see there is out of the context in which you are a participant and often purposely staged. That's one of the things that I grew to dislike most during my last days there. It's like tiny bite-sized morsels of the lives of others that are presented to appear a certain way, and sometimes aren't even real. I'm thinking specifically of a couple of accounts I followed where every single family photo was carefully staged. It became more than a little gag inducing.

Ida, so then why not just unfollow? Keep only those that have meaning for you. My friends/relatives are very real in what they post.

When my niece slipped on ice and broke her ankle, she posted what happened while in the ER. We all knew immediately and "the wagons" were able to circle very quickly.

I joined IG to monitor my kids...and it is a fascinating peek into the teenage world. I actually don’t “monitor” ds any longer as he is a 19 year old college student, but I love occasionally checking his page. His friends are hilarious and leave amusing comments. I am still pretty vigilant about 16 yo dd’s social media. Her account is private...but she has over 1000 followers bc her sport has a big internet presence & her team is “known.” So I spend more time than I like making sure that no one “odd” is following her.

She gets a lot of requests from clothing and accessory companies to follow her and then they ask her to be a brand ambassador. It’s pretty stupid...she used to want to do this but has since realized these companies are just trying to use her to push their gear on her friends.

She basically uses the ap as a photo journal of her life...which I think is a pretty cool thing. Holidays, trips, dances, competitions, games, are all chronicled along with the special people in her life.

oh, and I don’t really post much of anything...and don’t really have any followers except for my kids & a few of their friends. It seems like a weird thing for someone my age to post a lot unless doing it for business or something. :)

Bonnie, two cats and a dog are the closest I’m getting to grandchildren.

eld6161, all I can say is YMMV. I'm so turned off of the likes of IG and Facebook that you couldn't melt me and pour me back into an account. I think sites such as those are a deception in more ways than one. But others have different opinions, I fully realize and understand.

Bunny, I'm in the same boat. I have a grand Chihuahua/mix.

Though I never used FB, to me Instagram is sort of shorter version that is 90% pics and Twitter is an even shorter version w little or no pics.

I am totally addicted to Twitter, and y'all know I'm a GW groupie, so I hardly need another platform. Plus, like FB, the narcissism can be grating. And I am a card-carrying narcissist myself so that's saying a lot.

Of my three kids, only one is into it. But she doesn't post all that often, only when something is "instaworthy?" All 3 of my kids use that word, and I notice when we are on vacation it is big thing, trying to capture really cool images (which may or may not feature them) and often geotagging them. It can be artistic but it is also often braggy. As a parent and the family "tour operator", i like it because they are really looking at their surroundings more, LOL. They also have taken some gorgeous photos. When we were in Taos this winter we took a hot air balloon ride, and one DD has a great photo looking up into the inflated colorful balloon with flames in the foreground and a snowy landscape beyond.This was "instaworthy," meaning an image that was good enough to post.

BTW, i looked at the links above where someone posted their fave instagram accounts, and I found this photo

This was the Parisian Air Bnb converted factory house we rented 2 summers ago!

I think like all things social media, the value very much depends on what you put into it. I have a cousin who is a director of a museum who has a splendid Instagram account-- she shares short tidbits and thoughts.. photos are all views of her city, artifacts and manuscripts.. but shared in such an interesting and artistic way. It's truly interesting to skim through... reflects her profession, her location, her personality.

I find very few come close to the bar of being so interesting I want to check regularly-- but then, I check few social media outlets (other than GW) regularly. As I've mentioned in other posts, it's just not something I choose to spend my precious free time on.

How hilarious you found your Airbnb on Sophie Fehrenbach's IG, Mtn. Small world, indeed.

Rita, that is just what I am talking about - what I use Instagram for. I added a new account this weekend, it is someone who has gorgeous landscaping photos. I don't share that many photos myself on Instagram; for me it is almost like looking at a magazine.

I got a hoot out of Gloria Vanderbilt's take on Instagram's food pictures. Here she talks about getting an Instagram account in her 90s.

Is there anyone out there aside from me, my daughter and her husband, who has never had a

FB account, doesn't text, has never been on IG, snap chat, etc.? DD has an up to date phone for her professional contacts, driving directions but is otherwise never on her phone (unless we are talking - yes, communication through talking! ). I'm worse as I have only an emergency flip phone. Except for the time spent here and some OTA TV, I love being "disconnected" but very Mindfully in the present.

Never had FB, IG os SC. Took up Twitter maybe a yr ago. I don't follow anyone I know personally on Twitter and I have tweeted like, twice. I use it to see what people who I think are really smart and/or clever make of current events in real time.

I don’t have FB...it always seemed incredibly odd to me. As I said above...I have IG to check on my teens, and Twitter so I can follow dd’s sports stuff. I definitely use my IPhone for tons of things, though! I have lots of apps! ;)

I suppose it's like any other thing "different strokes for different folk". No different than watching TV back when TV was all there was. Everyone was going crazy over Friends and I tried to watch it once, that was one too many times for me...I hated it...just didn't see what the appeal was. To me, I don't see any reason to get on IG or Twitter, I don't feel I'm missing anything. Looked a couple times and didn't find it to be my cup of tea. I don't understand why people are being pressured into having an IG account. Why does someone feel they have the right to insist someone get on IG or whatever social media. I'm glad I don't have such people in my life! I'm my own person and do whatever I darn well please!

There are a number of businesses I've encountered with ONLY Facebook or IG pages, an not actual websites. Of course, these are small businesses for the most part, but there have been occasions when I wanted to view their photos or reviews, and the only way to adequately do so is to establish a FB or IG account of my own (although IG is a bit more non-user-friendly in this regard). No thanks. I don't really understand why those in business would want to limit themselves in that way, and assume they don't have real websites because it would cost them money to do so.

I have a FB account, but it's been over a week since I last accessed it. There are some things I like about it but many more that I do not. It does help me keep in touch with certain people and I actually do like some of the groups. I keep it off my phone, however. I almost never take photos with my phone. I have an IG account that I access less often than FB. While I normally use Firefox as my browser, I only use FB on Chrome, and I don't use Chrome unless I want to access FB or IG.

I have an FB thing but I don't use it. I forget more often than not about it. Which is why my nephew knew my daughter was back in town from New Zealand before I did. I can't tell anyone any news these days they always tell me the news. The mother without FB is the last to know. Plus I haven't seen any of her pictures from New Zealand yet. :-(

I have never used Twitter or Instagram as well.

I had the same question

I love Instagram. I think it depends on how you use it. To me it’s kind of like decorating magazines, etc. I follow some design blogger I like, many designers have instagrM accounts, even home builders. I also follow some friends, former students, etc. You can comment but basically as Someone said above, no drama, etc. I rarely post, but it is a nice record of photos if you choose.

Tina I use Insta in much the same way you do though I am rethinking a number of designers and DIYers that I follow because it's turned into a sponsor-swipe for code zoo. As for no drama, that's usually true but lately, especially the last week, it's anything but. I'm on hiatus from a lot of things right now.

I don’t gram or pin. I do occasionally participate on FB as I have childhood friends as well as family that I like to keep up with.

I had a FB account for three months in 2009 when I went to oxford for the summer. I was taking continuing ed classes while DS2 was in a program at RADA in London. I was taking lots of pictures and so was DS, so we could share them easily with each other and DH back at home. I deleted the account a couple months after I came home. Even then the posturing was ridiculous and it’s worse now.

Instagram....meh. I don’t see what’s so fantastic about a picture of a bowl of berries and two beaters from a hand held mixer. Again, silly props for fake lives. Not everybody, obviously, but there’s a deep seam of exhibitionism on IG generally.

I like instagram. I curate mine so it's only content I like: genuine friends and favorite artists, designers, etc. it's entertaining w/o feeling addictive. I agree with Tina in that it's useful like a decorating magazine.

facebook unfortunately has become a necessary beast. overrun with unverified news articles, drama, dumb memes and "inspirational" quotes (barf). the culprits are mostly my relatives, people I feel like I can't unfollow or I will incur hurt feelings (immature, I know). my friends who actually post good content are dropping out one by one. yet I feel like I can't delete my account. it's still is useful for friend/family/neighborhood news. I have contacts in other countries who rely on it for messenger since we can't MMS, so I'll put up with it for that. but facebook is a real dumpster fire.

@B F - you actually can unfollow people and they won't know. It's not the same as unfriending, you just will not see their posts in your feed so if you do want to see what they're posting you will have to make a specific point to go to their page. I have a few fb friends I don't follow - including DH.

I started insta (see how hip I am?) To follow my niece's public account and my son. It's the first place I saw his new apartment fully decorated! And during our "stay home" to follow the Deer Path Inn, their insta was so funny. So I only follow a couple, and ignore as wished. Same with fb. I think I use it more for local groups and local news.

Kswl, your experience and opinion are very close to my own. Others won't necessarily agree, but it all started to feel so fake. I actually spent a good deal of time on IG and followed and was followed by several hundred folks, but after a time it began to feel like a replacement for real life to me. So much that I saw was carefully constructed so as to put forth an image or "personal brand", and the inauthenticity of what I was seeing and even putting out there myself was more than wearying.

It's not for me. As with anything though, others will have a different take.

bpath I had to go look at the Deer Path Inn - what a treat! It's such a lovely place, have had many wonderful meals and celebrations there.

To the OP, IG can be an effective marketing tool, especially if you're posting on FB, because you can easily post on IG, too, if that's the way you're leaning. The effort to post on both is about the same.

As a user of IG, you choose who you follow, and that dictates your experience. I've unfollowed a number of accounts that added nothing to my scrolling experience. Right now, I've curated a good mix of pages that include humor, feel-good stories (which I love these days), houseplants (my hobby), cute animal pics, and pro-aging pages. I follow a few local businesses and support some small start-ups.

One of the best, most inspirational pages I follow is Humans of New York. If you're not in IG, you can just view their web site, although it's not always as updated as their IG page.

https://www.humansofnewyork.com/

Feathers11 I love Humans of NY! I also find National Geographic to be very beautiful and inspirational.

I only follow people / things that I love. People who annoy me either get muted (so I don't offend them) or unfollowed.

TheLeslieJordan on IG has kept me entertained during the shutdown of everything . I love his quirky stories!

BF, I never thought to look for NatGeo--just did! Thank you for that recommendation.

Bbstx... I didn't know who you meant at first, but now I recognize him. Part of his appeal is his voice--it's great to see his videos. He uses IG very well.

I did pick up an Instagram account to promote my food blog a month or two ago. I have yet to use it. I have a Twitter account I picked up about 3 years ago, and only recently started to use that - all but one post has been either food or homesteading-related - again, supporting the blog. I have followed a few non-foodie people.

I do Pinterest - which I started when I was in the process of planning my house build, collecting photos in a manner like Houzz provides, as idea books or dream books. That's expanded to collections of recipes, homesteading tips and tricks, and DIY projects I'd consider. It's essentially for myself, although I've left most of the categories public.

I'm here (obviously).

I'm on a couple of writing sites, which I've sadly ignored for a bit, and on a cooking BBS, where I'm fairly active. Also on a couple homesteading BBS's, to which I'm not going all that often - topics of most interest currently to me seem to be sparsely attended, or there's not really a gestalt.

I have done Facebook for around ten years and will stay there (although I am currently taking a vacation from it - too many Covidspiracy posts and then the George Floyd tragedy. (I'd rather focus on the science for the former, and on CONSTRUCTIVE change for the latter. So, I'm on vacation there.)

But FB has been an awesome means to find long lost friends and relatives, or to find out what's happening to friends in their lives, both good and not so good. (A friend's daughter was able to contact all her mother's friends via a FB post on her mother's Wall about her mother being hospitalized and in a coma after a slip and fall on ice.)

I do like social media - but I never felt the need to post everything about my life, even on FB.

I find some of the groups on FB useful - the neighborhood ones especially. Back when living in CT, if was interesting to go inside after grilling and eating some meat for dinner outdoors - to a post about a bear sighing around 4 or 5 pm around a tenth of a mile from my house! (Had I read that earlier, I'd not have been grilling OR eating outdoors that night!)

I don't understand why you might not like Instagram, because it offers a lot of opportunities.

I have an IG account and I only follow pages about subjects I'm interested in, and I only follow a few people I actually know.I have Facebook already, I didn't want it to turn into another place where I follow family and friends. There are pages about any subject, hobby, or anything else you could imagine on Instagram, and like someone said above - Instagram is what you make of it.

Now there seems to be tons of advertising.

Just flag the spam. It's not advertising, it's spam. (ETA: Spam now removed)

IG has rolled out this new feature, “Reels”, and it has ruined my Explore page. I finally had my algorithm how I wanted it, it was like looking through beautiful magazines, now it‘s all these people videoing themselves dancing and hamming it up. I guess they're trying to compete with Tik Tok (I don’t know what that is, I read it somewhere), and it’s extremely annoying. I‘m spending less and less time on it now.

Good old Rachel Hunter back with hints, and no doubt spam!

Instagram is a platform with limitless opportunities these days. Of course, it might be overwhelming sometimes since it has lots of details to it. But, once you understand the basics, you are ready to go. Maybe, in the beginning, you might need some help from professionals. I worked with megafamous.com, and they were very helpful. You may also try to get in touch with them and see what they can offer you. Maybe you'll become good at Instagram, you can never know. I'm sure everyone can handle it and can do a great job!

Ha, seeing my old comment.

My algorithm is back to normal now. Decorating, music, and cute animal videos. :D

Seeing mine too and it brings to mind how our opinions can evolve in time. I now find IG enjoyable, and that's because I'm highly selective about what I choose to view there. There are so many interesting sites related to design, decor, and art, and I am frequently inspired to travel to new places if and when the time is right for that sort of thing.

I just now came across this on IG. It struck me as rather hilarious.

It depends on why you use Instagram. I'm not interested in anything related to decorating. Sounds like that's where some of you encounter drama. I see no advertising and I probably only visit a couple times a week. Twitter is a different story.