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Stop Stressing the Digits
We need to stop obsessing over the vanity metrics.
I actually discovered the news of Instagram hiding the likes count on their platform for some users in the U.S. while looking for a photo for today’s article (above), and being the perfect segue into the topic I was going to go over anyway, let’s talk about it.
“Instagram plans to remove the number of “likes” visible on posts for some users in the U.S. to decrease competitive pressure among people on the photo-sharing service,” says an article on Bloomberg.
It is evident that society is so far gone into obsessing over vanity metrics that Instagram has chosen to go to the extent that they have.
I don’t think we fully comprehend how sad that is. The fact that Instagram has chosen to make that adjustment is a bad sign of society’s current mentality on social media platforms.
And I don’t mean to be a Debbie Downer, but I’d rather give my brutally honest thoughts on something than pretending like I feel everything is okay.
Let’s get this out of the way:
We have become insecure, jealous, and judgmental.
I’m sure we, as human beings, have always been this way, but with the rise of social media, this has manifested and developed to worse levels. We’ve become obsessed with our vanity metrics, namely our follower, view, like, and comment counts. That’s all we see. That’s all we care about.
And in being that way, we aren’t living as healthily as we can.
Now from a business standpoint, I understand the importance of the follower count. It shows how big of an audience you have, and how many people you can reach, should a brand choose to sponsor you.
But from an everyday standpoint, from classmates, coworkers, and friends, we care about those numbers too darn much.
I’ve already had people leave comments and DM me practically begging me to follow them. One of them even said that he’d do anything for my follow.
