Looking through the window: emotional experiences of Instagram users in isolation

Abstract

The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the health and wellbeing of people around the world has become an important research topic. Even for non-essential workers, social isolation has drastically changed people’s lives and habits. Considering that our daily lives and habits occur largely through the intermediation of products and services, social isolation may have drastically changed people's relationship with the products and services surrounding them. Thus, social media apps like Instagram have become crucial sources of information, social connection, and entertainment for the socially isolated. This article investigates the role of social media applications in people’s daily lives in isolation, based on the analysis of their emotional experiences. To this end, an exploratory study was carried out with 13 users in social isolation, based on diaries in which they reported the experiences they had through the Instagram platform from June 15^th to June 29^th. Results showed that Instagram had brought predominantly positive experiences to its users; however, negative emotions related to an excess of information and content consumption were also relevant. The results and conclusions of this work can be considered in future investigations about parameters for developing digital products that aim to reduce negative experiences and anxiety.