Young women’s experiences of spending leisure time in the context of Instagram challenges

Abstract

Undoubtedly, Instagram significantly impacts people's everyday life in the social, cultural, economic, and political arenas. One of the handset applications become common among young Iranians, especially girls, during their free time is Instagram. In recent years, this app has evolved from a domain of recreation to, in many cases, a career field for youth. In the meantime, one of the most well-liked Instagram activities is what is known as an Instagram challenge. In general, "challenge" refers to videos shared widely, especially by bloggers. This study examines twenty young female bloggers between the age group of 18 and 30. Thematic analysis, a semi-structured interviewing tool, and coding for data analysis were used in this study's qualitative methodology. To better analyze the behavior of these young women, Robert Stebbins' theory of transforming informal leisure time into formal one has been used. The three main categories of the paradoxical situation of leisure/career, the centrality of Instagram in facilitating the possibility of challenge, and the creation of financial channels in the context of Instagram rituals were extracted from the interviews. In general, these users talked about the goals and methods of setting challenges, the conditions of creating these challenges, and how they turned casual leisure into serious leisure by paying for classes to increase their audience on Instagram and not be discouraged despite failures and the efforts they made.

Keywords

• instagram
• challenge
• young women
• leisure time