by David Kent | staff writer
Starting this week, Instagram will begin to hide people’s likes in the US. Senior Liberty Vela feels that this new change will not so much impact her, as it will impact those who center their lives around followers and likes.
“I feel like it’s gonna be a big change because I feel like no one is really gonna use it anymore because a lot of people surround their whole…,” Vela said. “…Not their popularity but like…how they use social media, they use it for likes like they just want likes so they can have more followers.”
People will be able to view their own likes, but not the likes on other people’s Instagram posts.
“I feel like I don’t even have a problem with it, I don’t even look at people’s likes,” Vela said. “Like I don’t really care, like it’s not…it’s not a big deal to me but I know that for some people, it’s going to be a really big deal”
Not all students, however, share Vela’s acceptance of the new changes.
“I don’t know. I don’t really care. I guess it would matter to people with big business cause it would like show who is seeing their stuff and a lot of people make money from it,” senior Dallin Eldredge said. “So like, to me it doesn’t really matter.”
Hiding likes on other content creator’s posts could even negatively affect influencers and brands which get most of their business from Instagram users.
“I think that [brands will] probably have to spend more money on advertising to get their stuff to everyone that they want to see,” Eldredge said. “So yeah, it will have people spending more money probably.”
Brands may even suffer a fall in revenue and business as a result of the new change to Instagram.
“I think it’s gonna be tough for [brands and influencers],” Vela said. “I feel like when…because their are sometimes brands who will comment on your stuff and say ‘We want to collaborate with you,’ and if you can’t see how many likes or whatever they have or followings and all that, like people are gonna think that they are not like legit so it will be kind of awkward for them.”
With like counts now hidden, it is harder than ever to easily find like-minded people to follow on Instagram.
“I’m not on Instagram as much as other people but I think that it will make it more difficult for people to find new people to follow because they won’t see what other people like,” Eldredge said. “I don’t really…I think that a lot of people will think that it’s a bad change but like I don’t really like have a preference.”
Instagram takes the stance of hiding likes to quell the impact of social media on the growing minds of the youth of this generation given the recent growth in mental-health issues linked to social media usage.
“People just really look at that for some reason and personally for me, I don’t really care, it’s like, I just post a lot so it doesn’t really matter to me,” Vela said. “And like, people are really gonna be effected by it which is really dumb because it just did not matter eight years ago if you even had likes.”
