Instagram Bots In Schools: Advice For Teachers

Technology is very much part of the social dialog here in the West, and the uptake of social media platform use amongst school children is staggering.  Kids are growing up under the nomenclature of ‘digital natives’, never knowing life before the web and connectivity.  They are true digital age kids, and they take to social media as if it were a second language to them.  As parents and teachers, we should embrace this adeptness to technology, however we should have rules and boundaries in place so that children understand that it is not simply a free for all.  So, how do we navigate the plethora of social media platforms, internet forums, media sites, even Instagram bots?

Instagram Bots and Using Tools

One thing that we must bear in mind when looking at the internet is that is, first and foremost, a tool.  Any tool can be misused, and used for negative purposes, but tools can also be incredibly useful if used properly.  One could regard the internet as one of the most powerful information tools there is.  And this tool is only just getting started, since every single day there is millions of gigabytes worth of data uploaded to the internet.  According to research conducted by IBM, 90% of the internet has been created since 2016, and this growth rate is very much exponential.  Content creation is blowing up fast, and with the arrival of automation software like Instagram bots, this practise looks set to grow even further. An increase in the demand for content has led to other automation services being developed, such as a tiktok bot and social media schedulers.

The Case of Youtube

Take the biggest online media platform in the world, Youtube.  On an average day, there are around 500 hours of content being uploaded to YouTube every single minute.  That means that even if you spend your entire life trying to watch all the new content that is uploaded, you would still not even be able to manage one days’ worth of fresh content.  Children of ages 8 and up seem to take to YouTube very rapidly, and the way in which the content platform manages its user base is constructive towards learning, as long as it is used in a way that promotes learning. 

One Parents Viewpoint

A parent wrote to us when we started looking into this area so as to get our own guidelines for pupils and parents.  She had a very interesting view on the subject that also mirrored our approach and views.  She told us of how her 9 year old was given a mobile phone that blocked on a lot of sites except for a few of the main ones that they deemed ok for him to use.  After a while, he approached the parents and said that he wanted his own Instagram account, to which they said yes.  In his first weekend of having his own Instagram account, he posted a whopping 30 times, with one being a video of him in his boxer shorts doing flips.  Natural a parent might worry about what this might mean in the wider scale of the internet, but parents made the very interesting point that they were teaching him how to use the internet responsibly.  Since his account is also private, the underpants flips are not really a concern.