Users now have the option to hide ‘likes’ on Instagram and Facebook
After weeks of testing and being on the radar for more than a year, Instagram and Facebook- the most popular and in-demand social media platforms right now with more than 4 billion users combined are now giving users the option if they want to hide the number of “likes” on other users’ posts, hide the feature on their own posts, or make no changes.
The head of Facebook-owned Instagram, Adam Mosseri told that while the hiding option during the recent testing didn’t affect the experiences for millions of users, it did end up being pretty polarizing saying, “Some people really liked it, and some people really didn’t.For those who liked it, it was mostly what we had hoped, which is that it depressurized the experience; for those who didn’t, they used likes to get a sense of what was trending, what was relevant in Instagram, and on Facebook, and they’re super annoyed that we took it away.”
Karen North, a professor who teaches the nuances of social media at the University of Southern California commented that the platforms are trying to look into the stresses, criticism and mental health issues inflicted by the ‘likes’ feature on the users. But this feature is also how people measure themselves against others and also look for “social cues” that include “likes” and view counts to understand what’s popular.
Mosseri feels that he expects people won’t stick to turning it completely on or off. Because of the opt-in opt-out feature users have much more flexibility and comfort to operate the app however they wish to at that point in time. He said, “I feel like you might be in a different headspace at one point than in another.” For instance, someone might want to see the like counts on their Facebook feed but not on their Instagram and vice versa.
