Instagram has been testing and releasing new features over the past few years. This time, their new experiment is related to the like count from their user’s posted photos and videos.
The photo and video-sharing social networking service, owned by Facebook, is expanding the number of users that can access its newest feature. Yesterday (July 17th) more users had the option to publicly hide the like count on their posts. This feature was first announced in May.
Now, the company declared that it’s now expanding its hidden like count test to six more countries: Ireland, Italy, Japan, Brazil, Australia, and New Zealand. The test first started in Canada, where the people included in it had their likes hidden by default. While these people had to opt out to show the likes publicly, they could still see that same like count when viewing their own content.
In short, the new feature hides users’ public like count on both videos and photos in the feed, on the web, and within profiles. So, you can now easily get Instagram likes without showing your number.
At the time of the initial announcement Instagram stated that it wants followers to “focus on the photos and videos you share; not how many likes they get.”
However, it’s safe to say that the number of likes given to any photo or video are the ultimate way of placing value on user’s posts. Having more likes on a post basically means that that post is more impressive than one that has a smaller like count. While this can boost some people’s self-esteem, it can also bring others’ self-esteem down. For those who display this mindset and do care about their social media content’s like count, if they post something that ends up getting little to no likes at all, it can be a terrible feeling.
The new feature might prove to be really useful for both users and the company, since hiding the like count might give people the confidence to post more of the content they actually want to post, instead of just photos or videos with content that guarantees engagement, like food photos or sexy body selfies.
