Instagram Likes: Adding or Hiding?

Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) means a behavior when someone loves following a trend or becomes afraid to be excluded from the happening situation. This unique behavior begins in 2004 which is an era of social networking starting to be prominent in society, especially for each individual in looking for recent news, following the up-to-date issue, seeing their idol's everyday journey, etc (Gupta & Aditya, 2021).

The most salient engagement on Instagram is the likes of a post since it frequently becomes the comparison of a user to other users. With over 2 billion monthly active users, Instagram offers a huge opportunity for people to gain wide engagement (Sheikh, 2022). 

Since FOMO appears, other people who have minimal likes on their posts try to be the same as others who have high engagement on their posts by adding likes to their posts by buying likes on illegal platforms or websites. On the contrary, hiding the likes of Instagram posts could be the best choice to stop comparing each other's likes of posts since Instagram also has provided a feature to hide a post's likes. Accordingly, there is the main problem of Instagram's likes appearance and some possible solutions to prevent social anxiety of Instagram likes by adding likes through adding likes with buying or hiding likes on Instagram's recent feature.

As I mentioned above, Instagram likes appearance could lead to a comparison of each other to their likes. Somehow, people feel insecure since they get few likes because of minuscule engagement. In this case, it could cause feelings of anxiety or insecurity for individuals. Social anxiety is a condition when people feel worried, fearful, shy, and insecure at the same time because of many aspects. 

According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, 20% of teens with at least one active social media profile must check their feed once every three hours to avoid feeling anxious (Anderson, 2018). For example, someone just uploaded the newest post on his Instagram and he expected to gain tons of likes, however, he only obtained a few likes on his newest post. Due to that situation, he feels anxiety about his expectations being not fulfilled because of unknown things. The previous situation is an example of why there are over 15 million people in the United States who have a social anxiety disorder (Anxiety & Depression Association of America, 2022).

Buying likes in this era is not a surprising thing that we usually find in our surroundings. The process of buying is very simple nowadays since there are many websites that have provided a service for purchasing likes. After your likes seem higher, you will feel happier than before since it gives positive feedback for you since likes indicate success in gaining people's attention. The increase in your Instagram likes also is able to boost your confidence in social media because you succeed in making your Instagram engagement or appearance look great for others. 

Therefore, purchasing likes on Instagram is such a solutive therapy to meditate or medicate your mental health disorder which is led by social anxiety on social media. However, this solution is not remarkably recommended for several reasons and facts which are misleading yourself, Instagram can tell, and costing lots of money (Cyca, 2022).

In 2021, Instagram just released a new feature for all users to hide their likes on posts. Instagram's reasoning for hiding Likes was to promote well-being by reducing competition for likes (Newton, 2021). By hiding your Instagram likes from the public, you will feel more convenience with what you're going to upload soon or what you've uploaded before since you don't put tons of expectations to gain many likes on your Instagram. 

Also, you are able to minimize your anxiety, insecurity, and shyness. Accordingly, hiding your Instagram likes is a recommended step, rather than the previous solution, to avoid social anxiety as the CEO of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, said the whole purpose of hiding Instagram likes is to create a positive online environment (Shaban, 2019).   Since the release of the feature, Instagram encourages its users to focus more on the quality of their posts than the number of likes. This announcement appeared in Instagram's first testing of hiding likes. Hence, the users could post their photos expressively without focusing on how many likes they would achieve and it will be able to save your feeling of anxiety.

In summary, if Instagram's likes disturb your mental health and your feelings, you may apply to hide Instagram likes since it is a perfect choice for you to be fine. The abovementioned factors have explained to you clearly why hiding your likes is such a solutive idea which is an official feature of Instagram itself for their users. By clicking a simple button on Instagram, you are able to save your mental health.

References

Gupta, Mayank, and Aditya Sharma. "Fear of Missing out: A Brief Overview of Origin, Theoretical Underpinnings and Relationship with Mental Health." World journal of clinical cases. U.S. National Library of Medicine, July 6, 2021. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8283615/.

Sheikh, Mahnoor. "Buying Instagram Likes: Why You Should Never Do It." Sprout Social, November 3, 2022. https://sproutsocial.com/insights/buy-instagram-likes/.

Anderson, Monica. "Teens, Social Media and Technology 2018." Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech. Pew Research Center, August 10, 2022. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2018/05/31/teens-social-media-technology-2018/.

"Facts & Statistics: Anxiety and Depression." Facts & Statistics | Anxiety and Depression. Accessed December 23, 2022. https://adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/facts-statistics.

Cyca, Michelle. "Here's What Happens When You Buy Instagram Followers." Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard, December 20, 2022. https://blog.hootsuite.com/buy-instagram-followers-experiment/.

Newton, Casey. "What Instagram Really Learned from Hiding like Counts." The Verge. The Verge, May 27, 2021. https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/27/22456206/instagram-hiding-likes-experiment-results-platformer.

Shaban, Hamza. "Here's Why Instagram Is Going to Hide Your 'Likes'." The Washington Post. WP Company, May 1, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/05/01/heres-why-instagram-is-going-hide-your-likes/.