A Charming Alternative Universe of You, Your Friends and No News - The New York Times

Escape different

"In the few weeks since the introduction of Stories, Instagram seems to be on the path to becoming a different kind of place — a network where you can experience the most intimate and endearing moments of your friends’ and acquaintances’ lives in an environment blessedly free of the news.

This might sound corny. But as more of our digital spaces become stuffed with news — and, perhaps more alarmingly, suffused with an anxiety to always put forward your best self — there seems to be a growing appetite for honest, unself-conscious personal sharing online. That is helping to fuel not only Instagram Stories but also Snapchat, which recently surpassed the unceasingly newsy Twitter in daily use, and Musical.ly, a two-year-old app on which young people (mostly) make music videos."

A Charming Alternative Universe of You, Your Friends and No News - The New York Times