THE popular photo/video sharing app, Instagram, has begun trials in seven countries to remove the “like” feature.
According to a Mixmag article by Dave Turner, the social media network hopes that by removing likes, people will feel less “pressure” around the content they post.
The countries that have tested the feature are Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Italy, Japan and Brazil, with the words ‘and others’ following a username of who has liked the content, instead of the number.
Users will still be able to see the number of likes of their own content. The new feature excites me because using Instagram is going to feel like using my other photo-sharing apps like VSCO and Tumblr which are platforms most creatives enjoy to share with minimal interaction, portfolio usage and just carefree usage.
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I also feel that users won’t be as desperate for validation because they won’t see the ‘like’ feature, even though you can seek validation with other features like, IGTV viewership, Story viewership and other basic interactions.
One question that’s been floating around my head when I first heard the news is: how is this going to impact the livelihood of the influencers that make money through likes?
I don’t believe Instagram isn’t being completely honest when it says it is removing the feature for mental health purposes for their users.
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It wants to neutralise the influencer industry. By removing likes, it makes it more difficult for influencers and brands to monetise their content on the app.
The removal of this feature could possibly inspire influencers to be more engaging with their followers. I’m sure brands will appreciate influencers who are comfortable to be their true selves rather than valuing them based on the engagement metric that users won’t be able to view in numbers anymore.
Have your say
I asked users with more than 1 000 followers what
they think:
Andile Thusi: I think it has tremendous psychological effects in the positive context for the users, even though they may not be aware of it. However, it couldn’t necessarily be good news for influencers due to their loss of metric value they currently have.
Ben Dedekind: I think it’s great; the younger generation is fuelled off the feedback they receive on social media. Taking the like factor away would help the youth focus on reality instead of focussing on how many likes they get and since Instagram has the power to redirect the youth’s focus, it should use that ability for the better.
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