Instagram will be testing a version of the application that hides the number of likes of videos and photos which have obtained from the news feed, very soon. An action that indicates the social media’s effort to make a less pressurized environment for users to share content on it.
The test will be run in Canada later this week, head of Instagram Adam Mosseri stated at F8, the annual Facebook conference held Tuesday by the Menlo Park giant.
Mr. Mosseri said the company was conscious about people being frequently concerned about how many followers would like their shared posts.
Adam Alter in New York University, Author of the book Irresistible: The growth of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping us Hooked, stated dopamine, The chemical associated with pleasure, Had been produced in an individual’s brain when they received a like.
However, a 2017 report demonstrated the dark side of this subject, describing social media as “more addictive than cigarettes and alcohol.”
The same report rated Instagram as the worst social media platform for young people’s mental wellbeing.
One of social networking’s side effects is depression, anxiety, lack of sleep about the fear of missing out (FOMO), bad body image and bullying.
Professor Alter also warned Instagram users only ever introduced “the best versions of their lives” online, which might cause feelings of deprivation among people viewing their posts.
Instagram says it wants followers to “focus on the photos and videos you share, not how many likes they get.” Only the person who owns the profile will be able to see how many likes their content received.
Code hunter Jane Wong published screenshots of this test earlier this month, also at the moment, Instagram stated it had not tested the feature. Now, we can see that it was preparing for the test to run after F8.
However, talking about removing like counts has sparked concerns that it might affect the influencer advertising industry. Brand partnerships are often paid based on post engagements, which might be difficult to check without a statistical measure. At the same time, likes can incentivize less exciting content and promotes like-generating posts, like nudity, food porn, and typical Instagram-bait scenes. Executing the likes could fundamentally change the system of Instagram.