ABSTRACT

The purpose of the present study is to investigate specific needs, uses and gratifications when individuals post on Instagram. In addition, Instagram usage intensity on these needs, uses and gratifications and gender impact were investigated. In this regard, considering uses and gratifications theory in the centre of this research, we created initially 45 item containing scale by testing reliability of questions. Participants scored 5 point Likert type scale (1=completely disagree to 5=completely agree). After removal of items reducing cronbach’s α, running principal component analysis and determining factors revealed that individuals use Instagram for (a) affection seeking, (b) romantic relationships and meetings, (c) self-representation, (d) advertising, (e) social influence, (g) attention seeking, (h) habitual pastime and (i) disclosure. This study includes 101 individuals (39 males and 62 females) with the age ranging from 18 and 27 among one Private University college students. We also tested gender influence on these factors, and correlation between Instagram usage intensity and those dimensions. Results suggest that (a) while males use Instagram for romantic relationships, females utilize Instagram for advertising and habitual pastime gratifications (b) heavy Instagram users seek more affection, attention, social influence, self-representation and habitual pastime gratifications. Implications and limitations and further recommendations of this study was discussed. 

Introduction

Personal photography recently gained an attraction and popularity in which people use photos and adapt emerging technology in their daily practices (Van House, Davis, Ames, Finn, & Viswanathan, 2005). The emergence and immense growth of social networking services (SNSs) result in substantial rise in sharing and exchanging photos which making it popular daily activities among individuals (Pai & Arnott, 2013). One of the most popular SNS, Instagram, provides users to capture and share their daily life moments with people via pictures and videos. According to research done by napoleoncat.com as represented on Figure 1, Instagram is being used by 18 million user in Turkey which has the most users around Europe region (https://napoleoncat.com/blog/en/instagram–user–demographics–in–selected–europeancountries/). Thus, Instagram is the largest and the fastest photo sharing SNS through the world in which roughly 55 billion photos were uploaded daily (Hu, Manikonda, & Kambhampati, 2014).

Figure 1: Detailed representation of Instagram users on gender, age and number of users.

 This provided number for digital photos above was engaged mostly by SNS users is overwhelming and understanding the reasons behind this activity remain obscure and limited.

The reasons that cause photo sharing on the Instagram as well as SNS are needed to be clarified to grasp the role and importance of digital photos around web.  Considering enormous popularity of photo sharing on Instagram, the purpose of current study is to understand various gratifications on Instagram based on photo sharing and other behavioural outcomes.

 Instagram was aimed to connect users with (a) social connectivity via followers and comments button and (b) social interactions via picture sharing and messaging features. On Instagram, user judges each other’s posted picture as indicating “like” button represented as “❤” figure (Hu et al., 2014). In Instagram, users take pictures and apply different filters to alter the appearance of an image by instantly sharing it with the users’ friends on either application or through other SNSs. 

In our study, we utilized from Uses and Gratifications (U&G) theory which focuses on understanding of why and how individuals search out specific media to satisfy their specific needs. U&G theory discusses how specific media allows one to increase knowledge, relaxation, social interactions, friendships and other needs. Considering U&G theory on digital photo sharing, people share photos to satisfy their social interaction needs in which they represents self-expression, creating friendships, self-presentation and communication events (OeldorfHirsch & Sundar, 2010). Previous literature about the U&G theory suggested several gratifications on SNSs. These includes but not limited to (a) maintaining relationships/friendships, seeking information, entertainment and passing time (Clark, Lee, & Boyer, 2009) (b) shared identities, photographs and created content and social connection (Joinson, 2008) (c) learning about events, feeling connected, sharing personal information (Raacke & Bonds-Raacke, 2008) (d) social recognition, emotional support and network maintenance (Zhang, Tang, & Leung, 2011). As SNSs supported wide range of activities, it is important to obtain information to decipher the reasons and motivations behind the use of those activities. On the other hand, although there have been numerous studies about the social media connected to U&G theory, there is not much literature about the Instagram gratifications.

Moreover, literature requires an Instagram Uses and Gratifications Scale (IUGS) which analyses the behaviours of users about why they post on Instagram might be meaningful in psychology and marketing research. 

We will now dwell on different studies that have an impact and inspire on this research. Chen et. al, (2002) and Hausman and Siekpe (2009) found that attitude towards a web-site may be improved in the case of being an informative web-site. In addition, users gain information on the latest trends, and find answers their questions via mobile SNSs (Chen, Clifford, & Wells, 2002; Hausman & Siekpe, 2009). To acquire information, users become friends through mobile SNSs. Consequently, analysing gratifications on Instagram usage will not only help to improve application alone but also will confer on hints about why we post and other behavioural outcomes.

Several research suggested various gratifications. For instance, cognition is an important gratification in the formation of attitudes, learning, acquisition of knowledge and information on events and products. On the other hand, hedonic gratifications are associated enjoyment, spending time and passing of time (Smock, Ellison, Lampe, & Wohn, 2011). Integrative gratifications, however, covers personal identity and social integration related to forming identity, sense of belongness and enhancing individual values (Nambisan & Baron, 2007). In social interactive gratification, users share information and contents among each other. 

The present study clarifies uses and gratifications among Instagram users as well as why they post on Instagram. Considering previous literature on U&G theory and digital photo sharing among SNS, users share photos to fulfil their intrinsic and extrinsic needs. Based on previous gratification on U&G theory as previously mentioned, our research questions are as follows: (1) What kind of specific needs that individuals have while they were posting on Instagram? (2) To what degree are Instagram users’ needs having correlation with the Instagram usage intensity? (3) To what extent are Instagram users’ needs having association with gender? Our hypothesis includes those who have intense Instagram usage will have more gratification scores. Finally, starting from an Instagram scale, we aimed that our scale could be used as global SNS analysing measurement. 

Method

 Our sample consists of Turkish undergraduate students from a private college. As Private University undergraduate students have similar culture, we may find less bias towards subjects. As a result, considering the sample characteristics such as similar socioeconomic and cultural traits, more significant conclusions may be gathered through the data collected. Our total sample size includes 104 participants (N=104) aged between 18 and 27 with 42 males and 62 females. In addition, we also to evaluated users’ Instagram usage intensity. After eliminating individuals who did not use Instagram, we have total 101 participants aged between 18 and 27 with 39 males and 62 females. The age range in our total sample (N=101, between 18 and 27) shows young population who are skilled at using social media. Despite seeming small sample size, considering less bias and young aged population, we have strong exploratory and explanatory statistical factors in terms of analysing our research questions and hypothesis.

Research Design 

 Considering the U&G factors, literature review from previous studies resulted in 45 items in our pool which were written and modified into Turkish language (Malik, Dhir, & Nieminen, 2016; Pai & Arnott, 2013). Appendix A shows 45 item containing IUGS scale. After informed consent forms had been given to participants to confirm their voluntariness, it was told that they may leave the research anytime. The IUGS did not collect any name or identity, however gender and ages were collected from the subjects.

Measures

Sociodemographic Data

Sociodemographic information representing gender and age were collected from the subjects.

Instagram Usage Intensity

 In order to asses Instagram usage intensity, we evaluated the Instagram usage intensity of respondents by asking “Typically, how long do you use Instagram on one day?” (1= I never use, 2= 15-30 minutes, 3= 30-60 minutes, 4= 1-2 hours, 5= 2-4 hours, 6=more than 4 hours). This question was used to measure the time spent using Instagram and to measure frequency of Instagram usage. 

Instagram Motivations

 Instagram Uses and Gratifications Scale(IUGS) 1-45 was used to measure Instagram uses and gratifications which indicates 5 point Likert type scale (1=Completely disagree, 5= Completely agree). Data gathered from that scale further analysed to investigate frequency of response, factor structure and reliability test.

Statistical Analysis

 We analysed our data using SPSS program version 20.0. Internal reliability tests representing cronbach’s alpha was calculated to measure scale reliability. Items reducing alpha value was removed. Further, we perform KMO and Barlett test of sphericity to measure whether the adequacy of the data is appropriate to run factor analysis. Since those tests are developed to measure the sampling adequacy, it show goodness of fit for the data evaluated. As we found acceptable results for KMO>.600 and with the significant (.000) Barlett’s test of sphericity (Bartlett, 1950), we further perform principal component analysis to extract the factors loaded in our research. 

Results

Descriptive Statistics on Instagram Usage Intensity

Table 1: Frequency Table for Instagram Usage Intensity

Considering Instagram Usage Intensity (see table 1 above), 19.2% (N=20) cumulative percentage of our total sample (N=101) spend 15-30 minutes, 18.3% (N=19) of our respondents spend 30-60 minutes, 23.1% (N=24) of our respondents spend 1-2 hours, 21.2% (N=22) of our respondents spend 2-4 hours, 15.4% (N=16) of our respondents spend more than 4 hours on Instagram daily. Only 3 people (2.9%) never use Instagram which includes 2.9% of total sample. 

Internal Reliability Analysis

Prior to start the data analysis, we checked total cronbach’s α which representing scale reliability. Cronbach’s α value of total 45 item pool questionnaire was calculated as .866 before item removal (see table 3 for before and after cronbach’s α evaluation). 

Table 2: IUGS including 45 items and Cronabach’s α if item deleted

Table 2 represents change in α values after item deletion. Items #8, #18, #21, #23, #24, #28 and #30 were removed since they reduce α value.

Table 3: Comparison of Cronbach’s α values before and after item removal

As can be seen on Table 3, after removing 7 items from the questionnaire, cronbach’s α representing internal reliability increased from .866 to .880 indicating that data is more reliable. 

Principal Component Analysis (PCA) Demonstrating Factor Extraction

To extract the components in Instagram Uses and Gratification scale, 45 IUGS items were exposed to principal component analysis including Varimax rotation with Keiser Normalization. Previous research suggest that unrotated results from a factor analysis is not easy to interpret (Osborne, 2015). Indeed, we perform two series of analysis with rotation and without rotation. We found less components without homogeneity among items in unrotated one. Therefore, we decided to rotate with varimax as many papers did. We measured sampling adequacy with Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin’s index and the sphericity with Barlett’s test exhibited meaningful results: KMO=.692 and p=.000. Our inclusion criteria for factor extraction included items with eigenvalues greater than 1.0 with close differences in cross-loadings, factor loadings greater than 0.3, and at least 3 items in an individual factor. It is important to note that in the case of high cross loading differences occurs on different components, primary factor loading (the highest one) was considered on the component analysis and other factor loadings were not included during the components are extracted. In addition, factor loadings smaller than 0.300 were also removed. 

According to PCA analysis representing our inclusion criteria as shown on Table 4, we found 11 different factors. However, component #9 and #11 were dropped from the analysis due to it contains 2 individual items. Therefore, IUGS item #26 and #22 were also removed from the scale due to cannot being categorized. In addition, items (#14 and #39) belonging component #8 were also removed due to low Cronbach’s α values (see table 6). Item questions removed from the scale with their reasons were shown on Table 5 with grey label.

Table 4: IUGS Component Extraction 

It is important to note that items shown in yellow labels are primary (target) factor loadings showing the highest load on items. As shown in bold, some factors have cross-correlation among each other also included analysis. 

Further we named the 8 factors according to analysing questions and related gratifications. The name of the gratifications on eight different components were shown on Table 6 with their representing sub-item cronbach’s α. The reliability of all eight factors was acceptable. Total Cronbach’s α value including eight factors was found as .879.

Table 5: Item Questions Removed from IUGS Scale

Table 6: IUGS Gratifications on Different Factors

 Instagram Uses and Gratifications Factors

Factor 1: Affection Seeking

Items loading on factor 1, suggested that Instagram users engaged in affection seeking to fulfil their psycho-social needs. Affection was described as the need for expressing and getting appreciation or feelings by appreciating, encouraging and showing care (Cheng, Liang, & Leung, 2015). As shown in table 1, Instagram users were seeking affection to get more likes, to be more popular, to have more followers, to get more attention, to get more comments and to feel more value and care. This factor explained 43.175% of total variance which is the highest one in our experiment.

Table 7: Items, means and standard deviations for factor 1

Factor 2: Romantic Relationships and Meeting

Items loading on factor 2, suggested that Instagram users engaged in pursuit of romantic relationships and meetings for friendships to fulfil their psycho-social needs. Instagram users wanted to find potential romantic relationships and meetings (see table 8). This factor explained

6.26% of total variance in our experiment.

Table 8: Items, means and standard deviations for factor 2

Factor 3: Self-Representation

Items loading on factor 3, suggested that Instagram users engaged in self-representation by using live feature to demonstrate themselves, to get compliments about their physical appearances, to uncover what is happening around themselves (see table 9). This factor explained 12.10% of total variance.  

Table 9: Items, means and standard deviations for factor 3.

Factor 4: Advertising

Items loading on factor 4, suggested that Instagram users utilize Instagram for advertising. 

They use Instagram to buy their needs such as accessories, bags and shoes (see table 10). This factor was explained 2.45% of total variance which was the least one in our experiment.

Table 10: Items, means and standard deviations for factor 4.

Factor 5: Social influence

Social influence gratification is the combination of several feelings which including “following trend, being stylish or appearing cool” to be a part of group or society. Items loading on factor 5, suggested that Instagram users utilize social influence gratification with the intention to be a part of society in which they share photos to get more likes, being trendy and stylish. This factor was explained 10.63% total variance.

Table 11: Items, means and standard deviations for factor 5.

Factor 6: Attention Seeking

The gratification named as attention seeking refers the sentiments of getting attention and importance from other individuals (Park, Kee, & Valenzuela, 2009). Items loading on factor 6, suggested that Instagram users are getting attention and importance from others when they get more likes, they talked with someone and they got compliment about their physical appearances. This factor was explained 12.03% of total variance.

Table 12: Items, means and standard deviations for factor 6.

Factor 7: Habitual Pastime

Gratification named as habitual pastime refers an activity performed as unintentionally and regularly. Items loading on factor 7, suggested that Instagram users regularly perform Instagram usage activity. Photo sharing, being on Instagram and spending time gratifications appear as their regular habits (see Table 13). This factor was explained as 8.21% variance. 

Table 13: Items, means and standard deviations for factor 7.

Factor 8: Disclosure

Gratification named as disclosure explains sharing personal information about oneself and other closely related individuals (Park et al., 2009). Items loading on factor 8, indicated that

Instagram users share photos on Instagram to disclose themselves, to be more popular. Instagram users also do care comments written on Instagram which might be indicative of gathering information about oneself or closely related individuals. This factor was explained as 5.15% of total variance.

Table 14:  Items, means and standard deviations for factor 8.

Further, we wanted to see correlations between Instagram usage intensity and IUGS dimensions (affection seeking, romantic relationships and meeting, self-representation, advertising, social influence, attention seeking, habitual pastime, disclosure and total IUGS scores). Results gathered from table 15 indicates that those who have intense Instagram usage also have significant positive correlation on affection seeking, self-representation, social influence, attention seeking, habitual pastime, disclosure dimensions and total IUGS scores. These demonstrates that heavy Instagram users were seeking more affection and attention, they have intense self-representation, Instagram usage habits, more disclosure as well as higher total IUGS scores.    

Table 15: Correlation Between Instagram Usage Intensity and IUGS dimensions

Later, we wanted to see whether these dimensions significantly differed between males and females. To test our research question “To what extent are Instagram users’ needs having association with gender”, we performed MANOVA (multivariate analysis of variance) analysis. As shown in Table 16, concerning gender differences on Instagram uses and gratifications dimensions belonging to romantic relationships and meetings (p=.001), advertising (p=.042) and habitual pastime (.000) significantly differed between males and females. Results indicating that males use Instagram more romantic relationships and meetings than females whereas females utilize Instagram advertising and usage more than males (see table 16 mean scores).

Table 16: Mean Differences in IUGS dimensions Between Males and Females

Discussion

 In our research, to brighten the Instagram use and gratifications, we developed IUGS scale consisting of 45 items at the beginning. Considering U&G theory, our research looked for answer for the following questions (1) What kind of specific needs that Instagram users have while they were posting on Instagram? (2) To what degree are Instagram users’ needs having correlation with the Instagram usage intensity? (3) To what extent are Instagram users’ needs having association with gender. As far as we knew, no previous research developed an Instagram use and gratifications, although several types of scale in other SNSs mostly on facebook (Park et al., 2009; Raacke & Bonds-Raacke, 2008). 

 First, we collected Instagram usage intensity and IUGS data from 104 Instagram users. As shown in table 1, only 3 participants (all of them were males) never used Instagram before. Therefore, we used data belonging to 101 individuals to analyse Instagram use and gratifications. Majority of Instagram users spent 1-2 hours (23.1% of total population) and 2-4 hours (21.2% of total population) indicating that our sample actively utilize Instagram. Prior to starting cronbach’s α analysis representing internal reliability of our initial items containing 45 questions, we checked scale reliability and we found α value as .866 (see table 3). Although it shows good consistency, we checked what happens if items were deleted. As shown in table 2 in yellow label, 7 items reducing cronbach’s α was removed and we found α value was increased to .880 indicating that we have better reliability. Further, we subjected remaining 38 items to principal component analysis via Varimax rotation with Keiser Normalization. To do this, we measured sphericity and sampling adequacy via KMO and Barlett’s test indicating good fit. As Osborne (2015) suggested that unrotated data is not easy to interpret into factors, we also extracted components without rotation to see the change between unrotated and rotated one. However, distribution of factors did not exhibit homogeneity (data not shown). Therefore, we used rotated component extraction which results in 11 components with distinct factor loadings was represented on table 4.  Similar to the past U&G studies, our inclusion criteria for factor extraction included items with eigenvalues greater than 1.0 with close differences in cross-loadings, factor loadings greater than 0.3, and at least 3 items in an individual factor (Gudelunas, 2012). However, component 9 and 11 had only two individual items which did not provide our inclusion criteria. In addition, items loaded on component 8 cannot be categorized due to they did not have any association (see table 5 and table 6) and they had low cronbach’s ɑ (see table 6). 

To investigate, items removal after factor extraction alters overall internal reliability, we further subjected 34 items to cronbach’s α analysis. We found α value as .879 which shows good reliability (see table 3). In addition, all the included dimensions after factor extraction had acceptable α values (see table 6). 

After factor extraction principal component analysis was conducted with our inclusion criteria, we found 8 different gratifications associated with Instagram usage among college students in Turkey. Particularly, since Instagram motivations remain unknown in literature, this part of study fills the potential gap in literature. Concerning our research question 1 (What kind of specific needs that individuals have while they were posting on Instagram?) present study identified 8 different factors related to Instagram use: (1) Affection Seeking, (2) Romantic relationships and meeting, (3) Self-representation, (4) Advertising, (5) Social influence, (6) Attention Seeking, (7) Habitual pastime and (8) Disclosure. 

As shown in table 7, Instagram users were displaying affection in the form of getting appreciation to have more likes, to be more popular, to have more followers, to get more attention, to get more comments and to feel more value and care. Previous research exhibited that Flicker users seek affection as main motivation to receive appreciation while they share photos (Malinen, 2011). Here, Instagram users receive affection by expecting that other users like and comment their photos, and follow them. Therefore, this Instagram gratification is parallel to other SNS gratifications. 

Romantic relationships and meeting gratification reflect that individuals use Instagram to have potential relationships and meetings.  This factor represents needs for individuals to build up relationships and maintaining meetings (see table 8 for questions). Indeed, more detailed investigation via MANOVA analysis revealed that males use Instagram significantly higher than females to build potential relationships and meetings (see table 16). Since no IUGS scale was built before, this was an interesting outcome which needed to be investigated more.

Previous research about this situation on facebook proposes that males and females distinctly perceive romantic relationships due to their nature. Authors explain this situation from biological standpoint in which females are more selective in the mate selection than the males.

In addition, while females prefer long-term relationships, males prefer short-term one (Fox & Warber, 2013). Here, the reason why males significantly higher mean scores than females to build potential romantic relationships might be arise due to different sexual behaviours among genders. An additional sex factor items investigating sexual behaviours might be added to evaluate more on this component. Therefore, we can investigate the reasons behind romantic relationship gratification in more detailed way for this factor. 

Self-representation gratification reflects that Instagram users demonstrate themselves by using live feature of the application, to get compliments about their physical appearances, to uncover what is happening around themselves (see table 9). A fresh article exhibits that people represents themselves in social media by visually (such as selfies) and comments (Rettberg, 2017). Instagram users represent their self visually by sharing images as shown in our item questionnaire indicating photo sharing (see table 9).  In addition,  Instagram built new live story feature in which users share their vivid moments. This feature also helps to represent self as shown in item question number 20 on table 9.

Instagram users actively get benefits from advertising in which they can either buy and sell goods (see table 10 for item questions). Females have significantly higher advertising gratification than males indicating that females use Instagram more to satisfy their buying needs (see table 16). 

Past research suggest that social influence gratifications are used by SNS users to follow a societal trend and to be a part of society of group (Papacharissi & Mendelson, 2010). Result from our study indicates that Instagram users share photo to be part of group being as trendy and appearing cool (see table 11 for item questions).

Attention seeking refers the sentiments of getting attention and importance from other individuals (Park et al., 2009). Instagram users share photos to get attention in the case they don’t have anyone to talk, to get compliments and more likes. As SNS platforms are important platforms that individuals get attention, sharing photos to get more likes may be the one way on this gratification. 

Habitual pastime is one gratification engaged by SNS users in which usage of platforms become a habit and addictive behaviour. Photo sharing, being and spending time on Instagram appear as their regular habits of users (see Table 13). However, females significantly scored more on this gratification than males suggesting that Instagram usage become an addiction in our sample. This results were also consistent with previous findings in which female have more habitual gratifications on SNS than males (Barker, 2009) in our sample.

As gratification named as disclosure explains sharing personal information about oneself and other closely related individuals, people share photos on Instagram to disclose themselves and to be more popular. Instagram users also do care comments written on Instagram which might be indicative of gathering information about oneself or closely related individuals (see table 14).

To see that how Instagram usage intensity have correlation with the IUGS dimensions, we analysed their correlation. As shown in table 15, Instagram usage intensity strongly and positively depended on affection seeking, social influence, attention seeking, selfrepresentation, habitual pastime and IUGS total. Indeed, since we have positive worded items, we expected that heavy Instagram users will significantly score more on IUGS total. In addition, those who use Instagram more, seeks more affection and attention, more addicted to Instagram, represent themselves more in part of society. 

This study has some implications for the academic and marketing researchers. (1) Understanding these gratifications will help to improve application in which content producers can utilize this components in the development of application. (2) The number of users on Instagram might be increased, in the case of utilization of these gratifications. (3) Advertising related marketing can be done based on female users more (refer table 16). (4) For the academic researchers, our developed IUGS scale may be combined with anxiety, stress and other psychopathology investigations in potential studies.

Concerning our limitations, this study needs to be models for validation. IUGS scale should be tested more. Personal responses might also create bias which have impact accuracy on data. In addition, we considered only college students from One Private University where sample was more homogenic. However, to use IUGS more global, it was needed to be tested with another sample with different characteristics. Although our sample size less, we have strong factors such as active young-aged SNS users. 

All in all, we developed IUGS scale demonstrating SNS gratifications among college students.

Appendix A

Initial Instagram Uses and Gratifications Scale Item List

The 45 items initially designed in our pool were shown below. The number of order for items was shown in their original placement. Items were scored in 5 point Likert scale from 1 (completely disagree) to 5 (completely agree). No reverse scored items exist and higher scores represents more gratifications on Instagram.

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