In the Summer of 2021, the huge social media platforms Facebook and Instagram decided to make a change to how “likes” work on the platforms.
With great deliberation, they came to the decision of making the removal of seeing how many likes your own posts or the posts of others had received optional, with a feature within the apps to turn them on or off.
The process of great deliberation existed because there were a couple of different sides to the story of how users interact with likes on the platform and how it affects them in terms of their wellbeing and experience of the app.
On one side, it has been self-reported by a lot of people that the concept of likes makes the experience of using these social media platforms more stressful and pressurised for them. For many people, they feel they are performing online to meet expectations which then, in turn, results in the reward of likes.
Not receiving “enough” likes on posts can cause discomfort and upset and can even cause these users to remove the posts they didn’t think performed well enough. There have also been studies into the concept of likes directly impacting the mental health and wellbeing of users, but Facebook Inc. doesn’t accept these claims and doesn’t think their platforms have enough of an impact to be able to do this, especially not on the scale of likes.
On the other hand, there is a group of people online who benefit from the like feature on Facebook and Instagram. Those who are “influencers” and receive brand deals, affiliate links and promotions based on their network outreach, rely on likes to demonstrate that they have enough of an influence to be given these things in the first place. Their likes allow them to work on social media, essentially.
It was also simply noted when Facebook and Instagram gathered feedback on whether likes should be fully removed or not that people were not unanimously agreed on either side, in fact, it was more of a 50-50 split.
So they decided on a halfway measure.
You can decide not to partake in the concept of likes and the number of likes, but your doing so does not stop others from seeing likes and the number of likes.
What do you think about this?
Do you think this is enough of a protective and preventative measure on Facebook’s part?
Or do you think Facebook even need to take protective and preventative measures in the first place?
It is a very topical issue and it is one that gathers really different opinions from across the board. It seems fundamentally that people have very different experiences within the social media world and so this greatly impacts how they view these issues.
Get involved in the conversation and let us know in the comments what you think about this issue. Remember that change only happens when everyone voices their opinion and can be heard.
Do you think likes should be fully removed? And why?
Do you think likes should stay the way they were before? And why?
Let us know!