Social media platforms have, over the recent past, become places to go to for all manners of things. Businesses are thriving, marketing strategies are working out, celebrities are being created, and social media validation goes on and on. How do you ask? Today, social media platforms are the best chance you have to prove yourself to your family, friends, and followers. Careful, though; it may sound like a great thing, but it is slowly getting out of hand, as experts have spoken many times before.
Now, for a long time today, the number of likes that your post generates on any social media platform is directly equivalent to your fame. Whether you are marketing your products or selling a service, or even trying to grow socialite fame, you need a large number of likes to convince the public that you are worth their following or like. Therefore, the more likes you get, the bigger you grow, technically.
So, what happens when you post a picture of you that you consider your best of all time and it manages to get only twenty likes, for instance? The immediate feeling that you will have is that you are not a likable person, especially if your followers are many times the number of the likes you got. If you look at this case, you will realize that the problem lies with trying to prove to yourself that you are a likable person. And the worse thing is that you are trying to use the opinion of a bunch of people to justify that; very wrong.
Social Media Validation Addiction
Do you know that feeling you get when you think your picture was worth one million likes but got only fifty? Do you also know that feeling you get when your post gets more likes than you thought it would? Can you relate to the feeling of having many friends just because of your posts on social media? At any point in your life, have you felt better only by the opinion of people on social media platforms? Do you ever lack sleep or develop slight anxiety as you wait on the number of likes on your post to build up? And lastly, do you ever feel down, disliked, or unappreciated when or if your post attracts only a handful of likes?
Such is the world we live in; social media has taken over every aspect of our lives, and more especially the social bit of it. Social media validation has become a worrying thing to experts, and it has got people going out of their way to do crazy and unexpected things in a bid to remain valid on social media platforms. How deep is it, you ask?
It would feel pathetic that your post gets only a handful of likes while other people gets millions of likes, especially when the content is almost the same or yours even better. It all boils down to one thing; you are seeking social media validation, and you might be addicted to the chase already!
Well, better put, social media validation has become the greatest addiction of all time. According to social media experts, the craze and rush for validation on most social media platforms are growing more and more toxic by the day. Social media now does not only consume our time, it drains our energy, and even worse, it is currently destroying our levels of self-worth!
Hidden Likes, Hidden Views?
Apparently, many social media platforms are becoming concerned with rates and levels of social media validation addictions. Several measures are being taken to combat this very serious problem, but the results may be long-term. The one that appears to be implemented the most by these platforms is the ‘hide likes’ feature.
Instagram was first to roll this out, and from the look of things, other platforms will be following suit. Facebook is one such platform.
If you want to know how hidden likes work, think about how the ‘hide status view’ feature works on WhatsApp, another widely used social media platform across the world. If you upload a status, someone can view it, but you will not know that they have viewed it. If you want to keep off distractions, you can already receive and read a text which the sender still sees as unread on their end. If you want no one to view your profile, the same applies.
It is basically a world of both convenience and privacy. Hidden likes will minimize the levels of trying to compare yourself with other social media celebrities because you will all remain anonymous to the public. For instance, if your post makes one million likes, only a few mutual friends will be shown to the public. As for the rest, only you can view the list from your end.
The Result of Hidden Likes?
This might be, unfortunately, not as expected. Initially, it was going to be the best way to equalize all social media users; not anymore. According to experts of social media platforms, the levels of addiction to social media validation have grown too deep to try and conquer right now, and it is going to take time.
Many people are still going to ask of their friends and followers, if they are not as likable, or if the public knows the depth they went through to achieve a particular look, or even how differently they are perceived from other social media celebrities. People will still go miles stressing over what they would have done differently to avoid the public shame of a tiny number of likes and comments.
This is the point where people go as far out as buying likes for their posts. Do people go through all this in a bid to match up the expectations and popularity standards of social media? Addiction it is, and a severe one at that. And that is why it is now a significant concern; the experts think that even with the hidden likes, this addiction is here to stay, at least for now.