#WOKE: I wonder how many likes I’m going to get…
Social media is an ever growing medium in today’s society. Social media started off with only a few outlets and has now reached such lengths that most people have multiple social media pages that they use on a daily. Essentially, social media has become a drug that we cannot live without. Personally, I use Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat on the daily. I even have multiple Instagram pages for different themes and content. I have become reliant on my social media pages and know that I need to check on it multiple times a day.
Social media has a lot of pros to it, such as allowing us to interact with people across the world. This is done through sharing, posting, tweeting, and many more things. This was then taken to the next level when likes, retweets, reactions, etc. were introduced. This can be considered a pro because we can know what our friends and followers like to see us post, and what they don’t care about. However, the question is when do we become too dependent on this form of approval? Are these metrics forcing us to act differently? If they are, is it a good different or a bad different? These are all things we need to consider when looking at social media metrics.
Let us use Instagram as our primary reference. This social media is used to share pictures, videos, and stories with our followers and essentially see how many people like and view our posts. Gaining the optimal amounts of likes on a post has become so important that people have researched what day of the week and what time will get you the most engagement. Evidentially, that’s 5pm on a Wednesday. Society has become so dependent on these likes to function, that they will wait until that optimal time to post so more people see their post. Sure, knowing this time can definitely help businesses grow, but what is it really doing to the average person?
I know I am one of these people and I will figure out when my best time to post a picture is. I personally use a different app (Followers+) to track all sorts of data from Instagram. Why do I do this? Easy. Seeing the number of likes increase honestly boosts my self-confidence. Some say it’s pathetic, and others do the exact same thing. I feel that the more people who like and see my posts get to know me for who I am. The more likes I get, the more I feel that I am doing something right. I know it may be slightly pathetic, but if that little extra boosts makes someone more confident, I say go for it!
Social media metrics have the power to make us more confident, which will encourage us to put our best foot forward. With every like we get we feel that we are more valuable. The more likes we get, the more followers we gain, the more power we hold. One day we may even reach a point where those numbers have increased so much that we have the power to change someone’s life.
Our generation clearly uses these likes to quantify value. I think to a certain degree that it is okay to do so. Like I said, I am one of those people who will wait for that optimal post time. However, I am afraid that one day we will begin to quantify our value so much that it actually causes a negative effect. If we hang on so tightly to the number of likes and followers we have, what will happen if and when those numbers start to decrease? Just as high numbers encouraged us, low numbers will discourage us. If we care so much about these social media metrics, they may one day hold the power to tell us to change who we are in order to have more followers and likes. I think the biggest con to social media is the ample areas of where cyber bullying can take place. People can hide behind a screen and pick on those with less likes and followers, simply because of a number. If our average amount of likes and followers begin to decrease, we may begin to think that we are doing something wrong. This is definitely not the case, but just as more likes told us we are doing something right, low likes may do the opposite.
I think it’s ridiculous to let others dictate what you post or what you do. This may seem hypocritical as I admitted to looking into Instagram statistics, but I still post what I want to. If I get a huge number of likes, great! But if I don’t, I still shared something that made me happy. My family on the other side of the world was able to see what I was up to, and I was maybe able to encourage one of my followers to post something they want to. Sure, there are negatives to social media metrics, but there are also negatives to everything else in the world. I say, if analyzing your metrics makes you happy, go for it! But if you don’t care, then you do you!
