Mental well-being. That seems to be a buzz word in recent times, but why:? Similar with the saying 'with great power comes great responsibility', just change a few words around and you could say 'with more social media, comes more opinions'. With an increase in mental health issues such as depression, anxiety and the unfortunate result of suicide, the numbers are becoming too big to ignore and something had to be done.
It was clear that the root of the problems were and sometimes still are social media pages and the addiction, anxiety, and expectations it brings. But we can't just get rid of social media can we? It connects millions together, responsible for billions in sales for all sized businesses, and holds millions of jobs, all in the click of a few buttons so it is simply impractical and nowadays arguably impossible to get rid of with countries potentially facing huge economic and social downfalls so this decision is out of the equation.
In comes Instagram. With reasons for these mental health issues being discovered by Instagram's employees and the public outrage of millions across the globe, the end answer was Instagram insights. This is essentially the ability for any account holder to view the number of likes, comments etc. that another user holds. Simply these facts has led to smaller individuals to feel inferior to much larger social media influencers boasting millions of followers, views, likes, and comments. This is where the decision to remove likes from external users on an account. So in English, I cannot see how many likes person x has on each of their posts.
If we look at the impact of this decision up until today, majority of users across the world have had a decrease in likes naturally because giving a like has a bit more of a meaning. It's also help to alleviate the issue that it was done for, but it is still an understatement when saying there's a long way to go yet and mental health is one of those things that will never reach the stage of 'no one has mental health issues anymore' so the responsibility falls on the shoulders of Mark Zuckerberg, Even Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Evan Williams, the respective founders and majority shareholders of Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter to work with their employees and find solutions similar to the one made to increase mental health awareness and the self-esteem of account holders indirectly.
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