The use of photography in everyday social interactions plays a useful role. Sarvas and Frohlich, conducting a study on changes in domestic photography, reported that the use of the camera phone regarding social relationships can be illustrated through six motivations that can be listed as: individual personal reflection, individual personal task, socially mutual experience, socially absent friend or family, socially mutual task (functional images in support of a task - plumbing problems for instance) and socially remote task (functional images to accomplish a task -picture of a goldfish to remember to feed). As can be seen, despite the huge changes in photographic technology, people continue to use photography to improve memory and support communication.
A previous study conducted on the practice of photosharing on Instagram in relation to social relationships showed that people enthusiastically add images to their everyday interactions on social media platforms and social networking sites as a way to enrich their communication. However, there is the perception that images alone cannot take over other means of social engagement at least for the many Instagram users.
The following section aims to enrich this argument by providing additional examples that illustrate users’ necessity to combine images to other means of interaction for more complete social experiences. In this discourse, the visual element seems to add another level to many social experiences. For instance, Richard, commenting on the wide use of images on social media platforms, believes that when people share their cup of coffee, although they do it through a photographic image, their intent goes beyond the mere interest in the coffee. Instead, they are interested in the type of social interaction that sharing that image can produce. This is an example the guides the investigation of new expressions of social relationships facilitated by the visual.
The Mediation of Photosharing in Social Relationships
