Social media will be toxic even if it hides likes – we’re too deep in validation addiction
183 . . . 154 . . . 71! As I scroll through the ”like” counts on my Instagram page, I pause over a photo taken recently at a friend’s wedding. It got just 71 likes from my 1,233 followers.
What was wrong with it? Did these people, most of whom I haven’t spoken to for years, not like my outfit?
Did they not realise I had agonised long and hard before choosing this snap for public approval?
As I doubted my choice, and sanity, that number was taunting me, sitting brightly on my post for all to see. A public shaming, if you will, compared to my other posts.
It’s the same with Facebook. Futile, I know, yet I find myself constantly searching for validation by others that my status, photo or comment is worthy.
But this popularity contest may be no more.
As The Sun told on Tuesday, public likes on Instagram and Facebook could soon be a thing of the past.
Instagram, owned by social media giant Facebook, has already rolled out a test to hide public likes in Canada, Japan, Ireland, Italy, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand.
Users can still see likes their posts get but no one else can — and you can’t see the number of likes other users’ posts get. This will “remove the pressure of how many likes a post will receive”, Instagram reckons, allowing users to share “authentically and comfortably”.
It seems Facebook is now looking to do the same — after app researcher Jane Manchun Wong spotted coding that indicates a change is in the works — but it has not confirmed when this may happen.
Social media platforms, now counting the cost to society of their clever but competitive sites, are at last taking steps to repair the damage. And the quicker, the better.
Why, you may ask, don’t we just ignore the likes, delete the apps and grow thicker skin? We don’t have to be on social media, after all.
But around 80 per cent of adults in the UK use Facebook and more than 40 per cent are on Instagram.
We are too far gone, hopelessly addicted, and it’s driving us to depression.
The evidence is stark and plenty.
A survey for the Royal Society for Public Health last week found the like button was considered by social media users to be its most “toxic” feature.
Even Justin Rosenstein, the tech executive credited in 2007 with inventing likes — then called the “awesome” button — has blocked himself from sites such as Reddit and Snapchat and imposed time limits on his use of Facebook.
The 36-year-old calls the likes “bright dings of pseudo-pleasure”.
Meanwhile, teenagers who spend three hours or more a day on social media are twice as likely to self-harm, according to a mental health study by think tank Demos.
Researchers last year found that students who cut back their time on social networks to no more than ten minutes a day experienced “significant declines” in the symptoms associated with depression. Yet another study, in the Psychological Science journal, found the same brain chemical, dopamine, that is triggered by eating chocolate and winning money, is activated when teenagers see large numbers of likes on their posts.
Psychologist Emma Kenny says: “You get a squirt of dopamine every time you get a like or positive response on social media. It triggers a reward cycle, and the more you get it, the more you want it.”
I can vouch for that. I have been bitten by the compare-and-contrast bug, fuelling the cycle of self-doubt that the seemingly harmless like button brings. If I, a 31-year-old who understands how social media companies work, can feel like this, how must a vulnerable teenager feel?
Of course, the move to hide public likes could spell trouble for the brands who so desperately seek out social-media influencers to promote their products based on engagement with followers.
But they will soon find other ways to flog us stuff. Our mental health is far more important than their bottom lines. So hiding the public likes is a step in the right direction.
They should go further, though. They should get rid of the like button altogether, to stop this constant need for validation.
most read in fabulous
After all, just because my likes are no longer public, I will still feel the same disappointment if a post gets fewer likes than others.
And while we’re at it, why are we publicly showing how many followers we’ve all got? Let’s scrap that, too.
If the social platforms go back to basics, maybe we can return to using them more innocently, without the one-upmanship.
Meanwhile, if you are reading this on Facebook, be sure to give us a like.
- GOT a news story? RING us on 0207 782 4104 or WHATSAPP on 07423720250 or EMAIL [email protected]