Blog #9

Instagram is a part of technology that has spread very quickly. Instagram is now seen as part of a persons daily routine. If it is not Instagram, most all people have some form of social media in order to stay connected with the outside world. Instagram has defiantly gone through the Theory of Diffusion because it has evolved and spread rapidly across the public to become a staple activity in everyones life. 

In the Theory of Diffusion there are five main stages. According to PSU.edu these five stages are awareness, interest, evolution, trial, and adoption. For Instagram this would be making people aware of the app, making people interested in what this technology has to offer, the evolution of the app over time, having people try out certain features of app and then adjusting accordingly. This theory is very useful in public relations and advertising because it it shows who the target market is and the process and how specific technologies become popular. 

In the Theory of Diffusion Diagram, it shows the percentage of people that adopt to different forms of technology at a particular time. A small percentage of the people are innovators and laggers. Most of the population (68%) lie in the early/late majority.  

I feel that Instagram caught on and started to spread because it was something for people to do in their life that is free. There is no charge for Instagram and the concept is for people to post about themselves. Between these two things I feel the app caught on quickly because people love free things and talking about themselves. I feel that people became early adopters to this trend because they liked the concept and probably had something similar already like facebook. There were late adopters because they were probably not a big fan of the app at first however so many people had it at that point they felt they were missing out. There are defiantly both benefits and drawbacks to being a part of Instagram. A benefit would be staying connected to family and friends and a drawback could be low self confidence in always comparing yourself to other people. I feel that this positive outweighs the negative because I love staying connected with others.