It’s become well-known at this point to anybody who keeps up with social media trends and pop culture that Instagram, the popular social media app that bases your entire self-worth on the number of ‘likes’ you get on a photo, will be removing its hallmark feature in order to “focus on the photos and videos you share, not how many likes they get.”
There has been some controversy among users as to whether or not they would prefer to have likes on photos or not, but generally people are happy that Instagram is making this change. It’s no secret that social media has been a source of harm to mental health of people today, be it: cyberbullying, the fear of missing out (FOMO), body image issues, competition between peers for likes, followers, etc.
In an effort to combat these problems, Instagram announced that they would enforce action on posts that violated policy against promoting cosmetic surgery, diets, detoxes to people under the age of 18 years old. Now the social media app is taking their efforts a step further by limiting a user’s view of like counts to their own.
Ty French, a life and style blogger, entrepreneur and social influencer, has amassed a decent 115,000+ followers on Instagram. French says, “I think [the new Instagram model] is a great idea for mental health! I think it will help creators and not even influencers focus on the content they post because it won’t be for social validation or for what will “perform best.” I’m excited about it!”
Meir Schonbrun is a photographer, videographer, travel content creator and social influencer with nearly 100,000 followers on Instagram. Schonbrun, in agreement with French, says, “[Losing the like count] doesn’t change anything at all! I actually think it’s great. Being creative and providing value has always been one of the reasons people want to follow you from the beginning. All this is really doing is giving exposure to people who actually have real talent and never really got the recognition because of how saturated it was.
If you see my previous post on the hierarchy of engagement, you understand that likes are a mid-tier form of engagement and a vanity metric that don’t give an accurate read into a person’s overall engagement. A like-less Instagram now begs the questions: Will these changes on Instagram change the casual user’s mindset? Will it benefit users individually and will people become less inclined to drawn in without seeing a like count? If it’s just a temporary fix for a permanent problem, will we continue to search for who’s top dog on Instagram? Without likes, what makes this platform different from VSCO?
- Will we change our social media habits because Instagram changes one feature? Some people may be able to pull away from the competitive nature of comparing likes on a photo they post compared to someone else, but it’s not enough to stop people from keeping their phone on the table at dinner so they can check to see how their post is performing. The difference is that you now set the bar for yourself, and you will be comparing the number of likes you get on a past post to your most recent one. If the overall goal of this change is to focus more on the content as a whole, Instagram should hide the number of likes a user gets from the user as well.
- If this change doesn’t take full effect, where will we get our new social media kings and queens, lovingly dubbed ‘influencers?’ Now that likes are gone, who’s to stop us from using a follower count to crown new Instagram royalty? We could take a look at comments as well, which, according to the hierarchy of engagement, would be much more telling, but old habits die hard and that goes for social media habits as well; it’s more likely that users will now be taken in by a large follower count at first glance given that likes will be more or less negligible and it will take too much effort for the average user to scroll through and look at the number of comments people get. This leaves us with more questions: What will happen with the accounts that have thousands of followers with minimal engagement?
- Is Instagram becoming VSCO? For those who don’t know VSCO (Visual Supply Company) is another photo sharing app that’s been used for years by people as more of a photo diary than a social media. It is touted as a more artsy, boho chic, vintage platform with a multitude of
arguably betterphoto filters. It’s photos are often a bit grungier and perhaps more simplistic, but the platform itself also offers users the opportunity to create journals of photos they took from specific experiences and make a collection of reposted photos from other users. Likes are what make Instagram into what it is; that is, after all, what social media has become — showing off your accomplishments to your friends, family, fans and casual viewers. People get a serotonin boost every time they see that little white heart appear above their notifications. VSCO is what Instagram wants to be and more because it doesn’t show the number of likes a photo gets and it doesn’t show the number of followers a user has — the content alone speaks for itself and the user.
Laura Visconti, a social travel influencer with around 131K followers, looks forward to the change on Instagram as well as she shifts her focus back to photography and content that doesn’t hinge on social media. Visconti says, “I am transitioning out of being an Instagram “influencer,” so this is a welcome change. Instagram removed likes in Canada and Australia a while back, and my friends there say it didn’t impact their work at all, so I’m not worried about it. [I’m] excited for the change.”
Instagram has come a long way as a platform and all of these changes are all very welcome, but this is far from an InstaFix for problems that have been building up for years. It’s going to be interesting to see how Instagram develops in the future from these changes and the new features it will roll out to maintain its competitive edge in the social media market while also maintaining a reasonable sense of mental health awareness for its users.