Twentieth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

It seems that Instagram has been changing our perception of social relations, aesthetics, and love in recent years. Instagram as a communication technology facilitates human connections in a specified way. Our problem is about the social definition of love among Instagram influencers. As a phenomenological technique, we conducted in-depth interviews with 17 Iranian Instagram influencers to discover how they define the core concept of love and its structure. They have more than 250K followers each. 11 of them were females, and 6 were males. All of them have experienced amorous relationships. Our phenomenological framework is inspired by Alfred Schütz’s idea about lived experience and phenomenology. The phenomenological core concept of love among the Iranian Instagram sphere is different between men and women. Women influencers define love based on materialistic values, political status, and loyalty. Men influencers define love based on erotic beauty, materialistic values, and their partners’ family social status. It is prominent that Instagram has changed our perception of love, but people in different societies and contexts still have their criteria. In other words, they interpret technological social values according to their current values and maintain compatible traditional vision in the digital sphere.