Instagram and Pinterest are currently developing means through which other companies can display advertisements on their sites.

Social media sites like Instagram and Pinterest are valued by today's teenagers and young adults as platforms through which they can share the most defining and cherished moments of their lives. In recognizing the importance of such online outlets to our teenage and young adult generations, the creators of Instagram and Pinterest originally ventured to improve social media users' ability to share their valued belongings and experiences with others. Instagram and Pinterest have opened up avenues through which people can represent their favorite objects and memories to people both near and far in a unique picture form.

The issue behind Instagram and Pinterest incorporating advertising into their sites is this: the sites maintain that they function as tools through which honest users' opinions of products, restaurants, services, etc. are voluntarily viewed and shared. While individuals rightfully assume that these sites will foster a give-and-take process among individuals who visually share and celebrate certain objects and experiences in online community, advertisements will by nature draw users' focus of attention to objects and services sponsored by profit-interested companies that offer only the product. Users on Instagram and Pinterest log in to honestly express and receive the common consumer's experience of life. Advertisements will work to steal users' attention away from genuinely chosen and meaningful images of user's actual lives. Adulteration of these sites through advertisements could usurp users' freedom to use the sites in the proper and most meaningful way. The next time we check our pages on Instagram and Pinterest, let us keep this in mind. We have a right to give say to the content on our social media feeds, and if advertisements do not seem to fit amongst the personalized pictures on our profiles, we should take action to voice our disapproval.