Vine Stories: How an App Changed Our Lives

Description by Heather Barfield, Ph.D.: Vine, a moblie app acquired by Twitter for $30 million in 2012, was launched as a free iPhone app in January 2013, and then for Android six months later. Since its release, Vine seems to have influenced lives significantly through multilayered, complex, creative and incredibly humane interactions between creator and audience. Some people fall in love, get married, separated, recover and reinvent themselves in six seconds on Vine. Others share their intimate stories of anxiety, depression, self-harm, and mental illness in six seconds on Vine. Some document their chronic illness, film themselves in hospital beds, even chronical the poignant passing of a loved one while holding hands--in six seconds on Vine. For many, a six second segment on Vine becomes the first time that they have publicly expressed their problems, hopes, fears, and dreams.