Quarantine guidelines have left students all over the country bored at home. In that boredom, they turned to a plethora of Instagram story challenges to keep themselves entertained, stay connected to friends and spread some positivity. 

There are a variety of Instagram story trends that have cropped up since early March, when the coronavirus began to spread throughout the U.S. and stay-at-home orders were being issued. The trends range anywhere from celebrating beautiful women to playing bingo to drawing fruit.

Because of the trends’ variety, there are different ways to participate. For the “beautiful women” trend, students posted pictures of themselves with messages of female empowerment and urged people to share. Other trends require some participation, like circling bingo or “this or that” answers and then tagging others to see their response. 

“It shows how truly bored everyone is,” said freshman computer science and art major Michelle Li. Li is among the students who don’t typically participate in Instagram challenges, but when she was tagged by her friends while quarantined without much else to do, she found herself participating in some challenges and even enjoying them, she said. 

Many students said that the Instagram stories help them stay in touch with their friends and the communities they’re a part of on the University of Maryland campus.

Alexia Ayuk, a freshman accounting and businesses analytics major, created a bingo sheet for her Business, Society and the Economy Scholars program to connect with her community. Ayuk is another student who wouldn’t typically participate in Instagram trends, calling them “corny,” but now appreciates their ability to engage a niche community. 

The Instagram story trends allowed students to get to know their communities even better; Li, who was slow to get to know people in her DCC program, got to see people’s bingo answers and talk to them about it, she said. 

Other Maryland clubs used to Instagram story trends to keep their members connected while away from campus. Junior journalism major Kate DeBlasis serves as the social recruitment chair for Maryland Images and recognized Instagram story trends as a way to drum up engagement. DeBlasis helped create a bingo card, a “this or that” story and has featured Maryland Imagers on its Instagram to help keep members connected. Other organizations like Images have noticed an uptick in social media use and started to follow trends, DeBlasis said. 

“Social media has been a major pastime since quarantine,” DeBlasis said. Now is the perfect time for social media to connect people, because so many people are participating in the trends and watching them, she said.