DIGITALA RUM OCH RUMSLIGA DIGITALISERINGAR - hur hemmet tar plats på Instagram

Abstract

In a world obsessed with the visual our homes have gone viral. Through the frame of Instagram family members seems switched to furnitures and the so-called smartphone surely opened the door to new, digital places. Social media has become part of the life of many and, as an effect, also of the way we do our homes. In the era of digitalization, the concept of sharing has gotten some new dimensions where the borders of private and public, here and there, becomes blurred. Why do people post pictures of their homes on Instagram? How is it performed and what boundaries are pushed in the process? These have been some of the main topics guiding this thesis. Through written questionnaires and interview conversations I have dug into the digital side of society to investigate the relation between social media, home and beyond. With a perspective that reality is made seamless, where spheres are tangled in one another rather than divided, Instagram is thought of as a digital room. How home is expressed and how it's experienced has proven to be connected through the community of the platform. What is shown is not that separate entities matter but instead the spaces in between them. Home is not made up of single objects or things, not even of household members on their own. Home is a stretch out construction realized through relationships. According to this study’s informants Instagram is an integrated part of the home, playing just as an important role as any other room. By utilizing the digital environment different levels of the homes are created and Instagram is used as a stage for performance. Furthermore, in a floating reality a sort of filtering function has become a strategy to structure meaning and sort the social. Also, what has been thought of as personal content has come forth as highly co-created and the sense of self is rather to be called the common sense. Actors, human as well as material ones, come together in clusters to shape the way we view and do our homes through the digital window of Instagram.