Since July 2019 Instagram has decided to remove ‘like counts’ on photos and videos uploaded by users. This does not mean that people will not receive likes on their posts, just that users will not be able to view likes on posts of people they follow. We took to Quadrangle at the University of Malta to see what students and lectures alike think about Instagram, how they use it and how they feel about this possible change that could soon be happening to European Instagram accounts.
So far, Instagram has tested this out in Australia, Brazil, Ireland, New Zealand, Italy, Japan and Canada. Adam Mosseri (Head of Instagram) explained that the decision behind this was to “create a less pressurized environment where people feel comfortable expressing themselves”.
Social media has revolutionized how we live and it has become a double-edged sword in a lot of ways. Nowadays, we can easily interact with our friends but this is ultimately affecting our relationships and self-esteem. We are being easily deceived when sharing content and this could result in high levels of loneliness, envy, anxiety, depression and decreased social skills. Moreover, we are interfacing digitally more than physically and our lauded self on social media is constantly seeking more validation through electronic likes, not life. Generally, likes and comments are dominating online users’ lives to make them feel better about themselves and connected to others. Social media has become an activity that we’re expected to participate in and we’re continuously improving our ideal self and our self-image to be in line with each other. We are constructing our general persona and putting out the cyber universe based on the person we want to be and on the person we want to be seen as.
Most people seem to have the same reaction to this new feature; expressing how it will remove some ‘pressure’ and allow people to be more open and free with what they post. It’s interesting to see how the removal of a ‘like’ count would change the way people feel about what they choose to post or not post on their Instagram profile. Has the amount of likes we get become such an important aspect of our life ? Does this have to do with the fact that social media, specifically Instagram, is linked with narcissistic behaviour? Narcissism is very often associated with insecurity and social withdrawal, so the attempt, or pressure, to find validation through the amount of likes received displays a level of this insecurity through users. According to an article on Business Insider, “Instagram appeals to Narcissists, because many interactions on it are ‘surfacy’ or ‘shallow’”. Instagram has in fact been considered the most narcissistic social media platform. Perhaps this new feature will remove this negative association, or perhaps these narcissists will search elsewhere to feed their insecurities...time will tell.
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This is a project for Study Unit MCS3953, University of Malta.