Would you use Facebook if the “likes” count went away?
Or instagram or any other social media platform that uses metrics to show you the amount of “interest” in your postings, whether by likes, followers, etc. (And really… was the “like” feature always there? I can’t even recall!)
Well, this article is interesting (pdf here) (highly recommend if you have the time to read it!). The author discovered there is a browser plug-in called “Facebook Demetricator,” which removes all of the “numbers” from Facebook – likes count, who liked it, dates, etc. The plug-in description explains it well:
The Facebook interface is filled with numbers. These numbers, or metrics, measure and present our social value and activity, enumerating friends, likes, comments, and more. Facebook Demetricator is a web browser addon that hides these metrics. No longer is the focus on how many friends you have or on how much they like your status, but on who they are and what they said. Friend counts disappear. ’16 people like this’ becomes ‘people like this’. Through changes like these, Demetricator invites Facebook’s users to try the system without the numbers, to see how their experience is changed by their absence. With this work I aim to disrupt the prescribed sociality these metrics produce, enabling a network society that isn’t dependent on quantification.
Interesting to think that you get your “social value” from places like Facebook, but hey! That is the society we live in now. And that is what made the author of the article try it – they read a paper the plug-in developer, Benjamin Grosser, had written, where the point was that people are using these numbers to assign value to their relationships and life. SCARY! (or not? normal, maybe? sadly?)
So what did the author think after using the plug-in?
- They weren’t sure if it was “liberating or invalidating” to not know how many likes a photo would get.
- They did like not seeing who liked something, then liking it themselves, based on its merit and not feeling like they had to, because their friends did. I thought this was really interesting. I have liked things after seeing a friend like them, too.
- They felt immune to “viral posts, to Facebook peer-pressure, and to acutely targeted ads.” They hardly clicked anything, anymore, feeling like they were in a vacuum.
Super interesting, right?!
Alright, now tell me… would you try this Demetricator plug-in? Or do you NEEEEEED your numbers?!
Of course, I turned it on, to try! Here is a screenshot of the changes I noticed so far (showing my blog page for privacy reasons, but it’s similar on the personal page):
(Also, if someone likes a comment, it doesn’t show who, or how many, just that it was liked – you have to click on it to see by whom. And I really like that it turns off how many unread posts you have in your groups!!!)
But, I think I will still see these metrics in the pages app on my phone and on the iPad! We’ll see how this experiment goes!
Themocracy
Interesting. When I saw the title of this article, I was thinking more about how lazy it is to just “like” a post versus providing an actual content-filled comment. So to answer that question that was in my mind, I think if they took the like button away my comments would just be “yay for you!”. Ha ha ha.
Oh! Interesting! Hmmm, people would hardly get ANY comments if they took that button away, cause yeah, laziness. I just like (ha ha) to like things too 🙂
I think that’s kind of cool for people who get so obsessed over their FB stats (but why are there still all those stats on the right in the box?!?). I probably wouldn’t bother using it because I personally couldn’t care less if some random person I probably haven’t talked to since high school likes or doesn’t like what I post.
I’m glad I didn’t ‘grow up’ with FB and I think that’s part of the reason it really doesn’t affect my mood or social value.
I agree that it would be REALLY good for those people. But I doubt they are the people thinking about using it 😉
Sigh. Me too. It scares me how much kids seem to be on social media. And how much they care about it. Ha. Adults, too! For me, it’s a fun distraction, when, um, I need one 😉 But I enjoy stepping away from it on nights and weekends… if you catch my drift. LOL!
I think a huge part of social media, is interacting with others via comments, likes, and posts. If you can’t see who is engaging with you, what would the point of posting be? Or would you still be able to comment on people’s posts? If so, then I would vote for this as I see (myself included) get caught up in numbers sometimes.
You can see who is commenting and what they are saying, it just hides when they wrote it and how many likes a post or comment has (hides the #). You can still comment and interact. Just the metrics aren’t as in your face.
Oh awesome! I love this idea! I may have to try it out!
I’ve actually deleted my RL facebook account and have one that’s only running related (to get discounts etc) so likes don’t bother me. It’s nice to not have to get wrapped up in it….more time to read my favorite blogs 🙂
Good points! Everything on the web is so numbers-driven. When facebook first got big (2006? 2007?) it was how many friends you had. Now its the number of likes you get on a photo. I prefer to care much more about the quality of relationships being built or maintained.
I’d do it. But I hardly use Facebook anyway.
That’s really interesting! I could are less about the “likes”, but I do like the notifications. Otherwise, I wouldn’t know who responded to things I’d said as I rarely make it through my whole news feed.
Yeah, with this turned on, there is no longer a number notification (which I like – that is also something I turn off on the mail app on my phone) and you just click on the notification globe to see them, instead of having a number pop up.
I would still use it because I like to interact with other pages…I don’t even really look at the likes. Some pages are obsessed with their likes…begging for more!
Ha ha, they really do. Or they complain when they are “down.” I don’t get it. 😉
When I like something I don’t do it to give numbers, but to show my friends “I think that’s really cool!” – kind of like what I’d say in real life (and likes are easier bc you don’t automatically get subscribed to the post). So when people like something of mine, that’s how I see it. I really don’t care about the numbers. It’s more about sharing life with my friends (I know it’s arguable if you can really share life via Facebook but I think so, at least a little).
That is how I feel, and I hope how most people do (with “liking” something to say it’s cool or whatever), but you know there are people out there who are feeling good or bad, depending on that count.
I still think you can share via FB – that is the only reason I still stay on it, because a lot of it sure drives me crazy, but I like to “stay in touch” with people.
Personally, I’d prefer if the Like option went away. I want real interaction, not just people clicking the “Like” button. I mean, I don’t get mad at anyone that clicks Like instead of leaving a comment, but I’d much prefer a real comment in addition to that like 🙂
I won’t lie and say I don’t care about likes – it is fun to see who likes what and what gets more likes than others. But I know some people who are VERY wrapped up in their social media image, and I think it’s absurd. People can totally create an image of themselves to put online and edit their lives to make people only see what they want them to see. Or worse, people live to put things on social media. I’m not always sold that social media does the best things for us…
I definitely think for some people, it is not doing them any good, which stinks that they are letting something so trivial control their lives so much 🙁