Instagram and the Gift Economy

 This past week, we read part of a book called The Gift. This book by Marcel Mauss talked on how different cultures gave gifts to each other. Some cultures competed with each other on who could give the best gifts, throw the best parties, and host the best ceremonies. We learned about how Scandinavian countries and cultures give gifts called, "contractual gifts". These gifts are given voluntarily and you do not have any obligation to give a gift back in return. But, if you don't give a gift back in return then you will no longer receive gifts from that person. It is a slap in the face to receive a gift and not give one back in return. The Samoans present gifts to each other during marriage ceremonies, childbirth, circumcision's, sickness, and funerals. They give these gifts to show that they care about one another, and that they appreciate the other person. Think about this for a second. Do we do this today to each other? Well, probably not in real life as much. But, this exchanging of gifts can be seen virtually more than anything. Since I see this in Instagram more than any other social media, I'm going to use it as the example to make the comparison. 

To understand how giving and receiving gifts IRL and getting lots of interactions on social media compare, we must first understand why we feel the same way on both occasions. People in general love to give. People like to give because we know that in the future, we may also receive. Whether this be virtually or physically. You may not know it, but every time you are going on an app like Instagram to follow, like and comment on things you are giving a gift. When people like and comment on our posts, it makes us feel the same way it would to receive a gift. The same way you feel on Christmas is the same way you feel when you get a lot of interactions on your post. This is because of a chemical in your brain that naturally releases whenever we receive a notification that correlates when we receive gifts. This chemical is called dopamine. When we get a social media notification, our brain releases dopamine. That dopamine triggers a happiness within ourselves that makes us feel valued. When we feel valued, we want to naturally make other people feel valued. 

Just like how the Samoans present gifts during important life events, we do the same on platforms like Instagram. If a friend of yours posts on Instagram a picture of her engagement ring, you are going to like it. That is your friend, and you want to make her feel valued and show her that you are excited. You might be so excited for her that you even throw a comment out there. "OMG YAS SIS!", or whatever females say to each other nowadays when it comes to that. Depending on how close you and that friend are, she may notice that you didn't like or comment on her picture. Of course, if she is a mature friend she may not think anything of it negatively. She might think you were at work, or somehow accidentally didn't see it. If she is not a mature friend and cares that deeply, she may not like your next post or maybe even unfollow you to show you that she took it personally. As your friend, she was expecting you to post a comment or show her support in front of all her followers. She expected that gift, because she likes and comments on all of your post to do the same to you. People nowadays are starting to find value in how many likes and comments they get on their posts. If you aren't partaking in the value-building of that person, they may not want to show the same back to you. It's basically a matter of "you didn't like my post so I'm not going to like yours", and "you didn't comment on my post so I'm not gonna comment on yours". Sound familiar? In the gift economy of ancient cultures, if you didn't give a gift back after you received then you wouldn't get a gift again. Kind of like if you don't start commenting and liking my post I will not be doing the same to you.

In conclusion, we can see the comparison to apps like Instagram and the gift economy of ancient cultures. Ancient cultures would give gifts to show how much they value another. If you don't give a gift back, you don't show value to them so they excommunicate with you. How scary is that? It's understandable when in ancient cultures if someone gave you a cow and you didn't give anything back how that could be taken the wrong way. But all over a like? Or a follow-back? Not everyone is like this, but I feel in the younger generations it could eventually come to this. The gift economy will continue despite technological advantages. It's just now they get a lot less sentimental.