Spending Time on Instagram Can Be Extremely Helpful in Learning a Skill
Does spending time on Instagram necessarily have to be a time wasting act? Can I swipe Instagram but still be productive? If you have a skill you want to learn, you can learn it by spending time on Instagram!
But how?! Hear me out…
I am a Computer Science major and a freelance photographer. But in the same time, I am also very interested in design. I don’t spend much time on social media at all during an ordinary day, but sometimes I still fall into the trap of swiping through Instagram. I couldn’t resist not going through Instagram for the entire day, but something I could do is make sure my time on Instagram does not go to waste. That’s because I have found a way to make my time on Instagram beneficial to my design-learning.
Instagram is designed to be addictive
As all of you might already know, Instagram’s algorithms study your areas of interests to give you the most relevant posts and ads. Your entire feed is designed by the Instagram algorithm to keep you swiping for as long as possible. The longer the time you spend on the app the more ads you would come across which is beneficial to them. Falling prey to this endless swiping would make you lift up your head only an hour or more later realizing your scheduled reading or working time has gone to waste. So, it is a given that you would be wasting your precious time if you spend it on Instagram, right? No, if you consume the right content.
Educational pages exist
Instagram of 2020 is filled with content of all sorts. If you want to learn more about cooking, or data science, or writing or design like I do, there are pages out there that definitely suits your needs. Professionals know that the best way to build an online audience is to provide value and that means to provide insight and advice. That is useful for anybody that is interested in learning that certain skill.
To find these pages:
Method 1: Search Instagram Hashtags
You could go onto the Instagram search bar to search for certain keywords that suit your interests. Searching keywords by adding a hashtag before it might give you more relevant results.
Method 2: Search Google
Another method to find these pages that would suit your needs is to Google them. Go onto Google and search for “Best (interested skill) pages on Instagram” or something like that and you will get a load of articles or blog posts talking about them. That’s somewhere to get started. You might be recommended other pages that you might like as you spend time exploring on Instagram.
Now you know educational pages exist, how do you make sure you don’t spend an hour of your time swiping through what your friends were doing on a Saturday evening but on these educational pages instead? This is when you need to utilize the algorithm that was designed to make you addicted to Instagram.
Tell the algorithm what you want to learn
The algorithm gives you what it thinks you want. So, just let it know what you want to see. How do you do that?
Here are a few things you have to do beforehand for this to work smoothly afterwards.
1. Follow as many pages about that one skill you want to learn.
Pro tip: After you tap to follow a page, Instagram would suggest you similar pages. You can also tap on the arrow beside the follow button for suggestions to be shown)
2. View and like their posts.
After you do this a few times, your feed would start to be filled with posts from these pages you followed. That’s great, but not enough. You have to do this repeat step 1 and 2 until your explore tab (the search icon on your bottom menu) has posts related to the skill you are learning. When that happens…
3. Go to the explore tab and tap on one post related to the skill you are learning. In my case, it is design.
4. This is where your endless swiping begins. Everything you swipe from this point onwards is related to the skill you want to learn.
Save what’s valuable
Whenever you come across some valuable knowledge, tips or hacks, save it. If you don’t know what saving is (probably most people don’t since it is the most undermined function of Instagram), it is the flag shaped button on the bottom right hand corner of any posts. You have the option to save it into a “collection”, like how you save photos into different folders on your phone.
Your saved posts can be accessed by tapping on the top right corner of your app, then tapping the Saved button.
Summary
To turn Instagram into a helpful tool for learning:
- Pick an interest
- Find pages to follow
- Interact with such pages and post
- Swipe to your heart’s content on the explore page
- Save valuable posts
Instagram doesn’t have to be time wasting, if you are consuming the right content.
