Pin your interest: the science behind Pinterest mood-boards 

The digital platform Pinterest was co-founded by Ben Silbermann, Evan Sharp, and Paul Sciarra in 2010. Silbermann, who had previously worked in online advertising, acknowledged that many people enjoyed collecting physical objects as a source of inspiration for goal-setting—whether it was a tropical landscape poster, a chair for their dream home, or an image of their favourite football player.

In the early days the company was a startup called Cold Brew Labs, which struggled significantly to obtain a following. In fact, Silbermann personally contacted bloggers to sponsor and review the app out of pure favour. 

However, after introducing its distinctive feature, the “Pin It” function—which allowed users to save, combine, and share website images in a digital collage fashion—as well as changing the name to “Pinterest” (literally meaning “Pin your interest”), the platform’s visibility and engagement skyrocketed.

Today, Pinterest boasts more than 522 million active monthly users worldwide who use the app to express and communicate their individual clothing styles, home decor, dream travel destinations, cooking recipes, and a wide range of hobbies, career ambitions, and passions that can be captured in content-related imagery. The digital collages users can create are called “mood-boards”. These aren’t just an expression of daydreaming since the practice of conscious mood (or vision) boarding can bring tangible benefits in real life.

First of all, creating a mood board involves discernment, as it requires choosing from millions of images those that most appeal to your desired lifestyle. The selection process is critical to manifestation—transforming an aspiration into reality through specific beliefs and actions—as it helps to clarify personal objectives. Clearly defining your goals is a necessary step before taking any action.

You can run fast, but if you don’t know where you’re going, it is useless – popular proverb

Repeatedly consulting Pinterest prompts visualisation. When we imagine an experience, our brain—specifically the prefrontal cortex, an area involved in decision-making—activates as if we were actually living it. This phenomenon is influenced by the reticular activating system (RAS), a network of neurons located in the brainstem (the part that connects the cerebrum with the spinal cord). The RAS filters sensory input, determining which information from the five senses should be prioritised and processed, while ignoring the rest.

Consistent visualisation of specific images primes the brain to pay attention to aligned opportunities, and increases perseverance and focus to pursue them. Neural connections immediately recognise the stimuli since the brain has already experienced the events through gazing at the vision-board. The scientific term for this intentional simulation of an event, using visualisation as a medium to cognitively train for a new reality, is “cognitive priming.”

Additionally, the fact that users independently select their preferred images from a wide offering contributes in developing their personal identity. As expected, Pinterest possesses an algorithm as most social media platforms, however the fact that you can divide your saved items into categories augments the sense of agency of the user, turning the collages into contemporary cabinet of curiosities.

Currently many videos are emerging on TikTok, which compare images chosen for a manifestation vision-board, and their real life outcome. The resemblance between the two is striking, and proof that using Pinterest will not radically transform your life in a blink of an eye, but it can be a useful (and pretty fun) tool to define one’s goals and provide consistent motivation. 

Mood-board by creator Lavish Interiors

Mood-board by creator BeWell