An Exploratory Study on Ephemeral Photo-sharing of Korean Smartphone Users

Abstract

With the prevalence use of smartphones, the practice and culture of taking photos and sharing them have dramatically changed. Todays users take digital photos using their smartphones and share them via diverse social media platforms. As this digital photo culture has matured, a new phenomenon of taking photos to share for a limited duration (e.g., 24 hours) has emerged. An introduction of ephemeral photos reshaped how people express themselves, live in the moment, and have fun together. The practice surrounding ephemeral photos has gained popularity and many social media platforms such as Snapchat and Instagram have introduced new functions supporting this practice. While previous studies provide sufficient evidence for ephemeral photography and traits of ephemerality, they lack an empirical approach with more quantitative analysis. The majority of studies were conducted based on the memory retrieval method, which is known to pose several limitations regarding participants untruthfulness and lack of retrospective ability. In order to overcome these issues, the current study uses a research-specific Instagram account for content analysis to obtain raw data of users photo sharing behavior. Data were gathered using mixed method approach: Photo Elicitation Interview (PEI) followed by ephemeral photo log data collection with semi- structured interviews. Among the research participants, 14 people participated in the interview, where a total of 37 participants ephemeral photos were collected. In order to understand what is captured (content) and its sharing strategy, this study observed a total of 14 participants in three different studies. The findings of this study explain characteristics of both ephemeral photo and non-ephemeral photos and understand user strategy of taking and sharing ephemeral photos. The study reveals that the content of ephemeral photos heavily relies on not only on editing formality, but also pertinence, timeliness, process-ability depending on the receiver. The ephemeral photos are context- dependent. It is difficult to interpret the motivations or meaning of the pictures as it is lacks the contextual information. In contrast, non-ephemeral photos are viewer- oriented. They are transparent, in other words, the photos are taken and shared just as it is, which makes viewers easy to recognize the object for capture, quality of photo, arrangement of photo, and motivation very clearly. The main goal of this exploratory study was to have a better understanding of the current dynamics in socio-technical phenomenon: photo sharing behavior, which can be applied to light-weight photo management in the future. Based on the collected both quantified and qualified data on users ephemeral photo sharing behavior, the research illustrates how photographic traits are exhibited in ephemeral photo and non-ephemeral photo, respectively. This study represents the first known attempt to find content characteristics and sharing strategies by conducting an exploratory study on ephemeral photo- sharing of Korean smartphone users.