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Instagram lets users hide likes to reduce social media pressure

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Re: Instagram lets users hide likes to reduce social media pressure

#201
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me a bit of Tinder Gold "hide my age" feature. Everyone has their age shown unless you pay extra to hide it, so hiding almost always will look worse than your actual age.

I just set an absurdly older age, while keeping my age filter the same. The 23 year olds actually looking for that can be amused and interested. But since I said something now I guess I’ll have to pivot to something else.

In Japan, tinder verifies your age

Re: Instagram lets users hide likes to reduce social media pressure

#202

It requires a very high amount of naiveness to think this could solve the issue. Only thing that will help is education of children, so that they understand their place in the world, to accept themselves, that the aesthetic standards provided in social networks are very high (but yet, as a central European my sensibility is a bit different than the one in other places -- I would suggest that this must be a stimulus t…

It's not just children that are negatively affected by these apps. It's everyone. The only way not to be affected is to not use them.

I don't feel negatively affected by Instagram. I like to see pictures of my family. All of the female members of my family (who are old enough) have accounts to comment even if they don't post. I consider it lucky there is a free photo sharing solution that everyone has landed on.

Re: Instagram lets users hide likes to reduce social media pressure

#203
post #169

This is akin to the ability to "de-badge" a car, offered by German manufacturers, where the manufacturer logo is visible but the specific model is not. I.e. a Mercedes SL could be a $80,000 V6 or a $160,000 twin-turbo V12 and unless someone was clued into the differences (like the exhaust pipes) they wouldn't know. I've noticed anecdotally that in the US, most of the de-badged cars are the low end models -- people do…

The whole indirect signalling of cars is very interesting. In my country (North/Eastern Europe) you pay more (€500-€2000) for a license plate that has certain combinations of numbers such as 123 or 747. I've noticed that pretty much every Porsche has a plate like that. It's kind of silly, because people who have no clue that exists won't care at all. You can also go full on custom plates, the funniest I saw recently…

We call "latin" numbers "arabic" in English, because Europe received them from the Maghreb. "Latin numbers" is actually closer to "Roman numerals," what we call the old Latin system (V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, &c)

Re: Instagram lets users hide likes to reduce social media pressure

#204
post #193

Do I understand this correctly, that you can only make likes invisible to yourself ? This seems about as useful as the "if you don't like it, just pretend it isn't there" school of moderation - namely not useful at all. Humans are social beings and acutely aware of status indicators. A like count is a status indicator, even if a stupid one. By hiding the count for everyone, the indicator would be removed, which I ima…

> Do I understand this correctly, that you can only make likes invisible to yourself?

> This seems about as useful as the "if you don't like it, just pretend it isn't there" school of moderation - namely not useful at all.

But a feature like that makes "pretending it isn't there" much, much easier. I know from experience: Metafilter has had a similar feature for at least a decade, and it does help lessen a lot of the negative psychological effects caused by "likes."

Re: Instagram lets users hide likes to reduce social media pressure

#205

This is akin to the ability to "de-badge" a car, offered by German manufacturers, where the manufacturer logo is visible but the specific model is not. I.e. a Mercedes SL could be a $80,000 V6 or a $160,000 twin-turbo V12 and unless someone was clued into the differences (like the exhaust pipes) they wouldn't know. I've noticed anecdotally that in the US, most of the de-badged cars are the low end models -- people do…

One idea why:

In the US cars are perhaps more of a status symbol? (not that they arnt elsewhere...)

So people remove the badges themselves from their cars.

Maybe the Europeans like a simpler design aestehtic? I checked and it's a no cost option to debadge your Porsche when you order it.

I say this as a European living in Australia, and my tastes in cars are different to my friends in all the ways you would expect!

I like Porsche, and have a 911. My Aussie mates like big V8s!

(who doesnt like a V8, but you get what I mean!)

And please no one get offended by my generalisations. Take it in the spirit intended :-)

Re: Instagram lets users hide likes to reduce social media pressure

#206
This has always been one of my favorite features of Tumblr, the ability to hide your likes and who you follow. Not only that, but Tumblr doesn't show follower counts - something that is immensely useful (especially as someone who had over a million) and you can implement your own if you want. It gives you a concept of social privacy in at least the things that matter - your network.

I hope Twitter follows suit.

Re: Instagram lets users hide likes to reduce social media pressure

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have the kids make a post to see who can get the most likes over a week, the teacher does a lame one as well ("read books this summer!"). Nobody likes the teachers post, until the last day when teacher buys 1000 likes for the post, blowing everyone away for $5. Now the kids know its all made up and the points don't matter.

> Now the kids know its all made up and the points don't matter. Careful, they might start questioning whether standardized testing can be gamed as well.

Honestly given the way I've heard teachers feel about those, good.

Re: Instagram lets users hide likes to reduce social media pressure

#208
post #14

What I really need is a way to lock myself out of the account, especially Twitter, without suspending it. Like, disable the login for a day, but I am still on the platform. The electric fences I put up myself never work.

Have you tried just not using it?? Or developing self control?? Surely it's like saying bottles need to be harder to get into because I like drinking alcohol too much... Or cars need to accelerate slower because I love speeding and can't resist permanently holding down the accelerator pedal, even at risk to my own health and wellbeing

Please don't cross into personal attack in HN comments. It just makes everything worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Instagram lets users hide likes to reduce social media pressure

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if that education should also explicitly include how likes, ads and attention are correlated. Making them understand their place in the world is good but SM is a different take on that age-old problem.

Have the kids make a post to see who can get the most likes over a week, the teacher does a lame one as well ("read books this summer!"). Nobody likes the teachers post, until the last day when teacher buys 1000 likes for the post, blowing everyone away for $5. Now the kids know its all made up and the points don't matter.

Welcome to whose like is it anyway - the show where everything is made up and the points don't matter

Re: Instagram lets users hide likes to reduce social media pressure

#210

This is akin to the ability to "de-badge" a car, offered by German manufacturers, where the manufacturer logo is visible but the specific model is not. I.e. a Mercedes SL could be a $80,000 V6 or a $160,000 twin-turbo V12 and unless someone was clued into the differences (like the exhaust pipes) they wouldn't know. I've noticed anecdotally that in the US, most of the de-badged cars are the low end models -- people do…

Funny you say that. We have a lot of $100k+ debadged cars in Switzerland, and I never even noticed until my Kiwi friend started pointing it out.
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