Why I Stopped Liking Things on Facebook

And how algorithms remove the humanity from curiosity.

Yep. I’m that guy. It’s been almost two years now since I stopped “liking” things on Facebook — and not only Facebook, but also Instagram, Twitter, etc., you name it. With new rumors that Facebook is adding different reactions besides likes and that Twitter may be testing algorithmic changes to its timeline, I thought it was time to put my experience out there.

My friends and colleagues make fun of me: “Oh, so you enjoyed my picture but you’re not actually going to like it. Thanks for nothing.”

I didn’t stopped liking things because I hate my friends or think they don’t deserve my “social affection” but because I was sick of Facebook sucking time away from my life with no tangible reward. I found that the value of the like was negligible and ultimately contributed very little to my life or other people’s lives. It did not fulfill any purpose.

What is a Like?

The like is a funny thing, chiefly because no one has ever told us what it means. Facebook has no FAQ on how to like content.

Ask someone what their like means and you’ll get dozens of different answers. Here’s just a few that top the list:

1. I like this.
2. I love this.
3. I agree with this.
4. I disagree with this but like you.
5. I want to read this later.
6. I want more people to see that you are stupid.
7. This is okay but I like this because you’re my boss.
8. You’re pretty hot. We should date.
9. I don’t like you but your kid is cute.
10. I’m drunk.

Don’t forget mom and dad, who like every single thing you do.

You see — because the like is free, it holds little value and can take on whatever quality the person giving it decides. You could have an infinite cross-section of reasons behind why individual people found what you posted like-able. Not only is the like valueless, but it is also ephemeral — meaning it doesn’t last. Maybe you’ll check how many likes your picture got tomorrow or the next day, but the reward fades quickly. You’ve moved on to the next thing.

Algorithms drive bias and kill human curiosity

In a non-algorithmic system like Instagram or Twitter, this isn’t a big deal. The like doesn’t affect the quality or frequency of the interactions you receive and participate in. But on Facebook, the algorithm is constantly churning and learning, using your every like to decide what you should see and what you shouldn’t.

The only thing worse than issuing random commands to a database is having it return to you a changed and truncated perspective; a “better” perspective, some would say. If our likes and interactions are monitored so as to regurgitate our own status quo, are we not just burrowing ourselves deeper inside our own biases?

Suddenly this action of liking, which is easy, free, and for all purposes meaningless, has an invisible power over what you see or, more importantly, don’t see.

This is why Facebook, with reluctance, has recently begun taking steps to scale back from the omnipotence of the algorithm and give its users more opportunities to customize their feeds. This was probably due to the same feeling I had: that the likes were changing too much and not paying off.

Humans deserve better gratitude than likes

On an epistemological level, the like is gratitude for a gift. And we desire gratitude for our gifts.

An exchange of gifts must always involve at least two people, one who first gives and the second whom receives. In this model, the content you share can take on the quality of the gift and the like is the reception of the gift.

But if you cannot locate the true purpose behind the like, can you know with certainty that are you truly being received?

After all, reception makes gift giving possible and is the driving force of charity. We seek to gift not because we desire an exchange of goods but because we inherently desire to be received. A gift that is not received thwarts further gifts and hurts the giver.

The question we should be asking is: Is a like the proper way to communicate your thanks? If you bought your wife flowers, would you appreciate that she liked it? Or if you took a picture of your son and sent it to his grandparents, should they like it?

The like is such small, insignificant lift. I’d much rather message or call someone on their birthday than post on their wall. Cute picture of their new baby? I’d rather see the baby in person and compliment in person, sincerely.

Why stopped liking?

The habit was all-controlling and it lacked reward. Simply put: I couldn’t waste my time any longer.

I’d given up a lot of things in my life, but few things have been harder than simply not liking — short of completely disconnecting. Liking seemed fundamental to my online experience. Many people speak of similar feelings when breaking addiction but I literally did not notice when I was liking things on Facebook. It was sick.

The result

I won’t pretend Facebook isn’t still addicting. But after killing the urge to like every single thing I see, I’ve managed to stockpile a bunch of positive experiences from this:

1. I waste less time overall on Facebook. Because liking doesn’t define my online persona, I don’t feel guilty about moving past a picture of my friend’s kid or ignoring content I really enjoyed.
2. I have more conversations. In those situations where I do really enjoy something, I will comment on the content. If I can’t think of anything to add, I’ll move on. But it’s usually pretty easy to say, “wow, thanks. write more of this.”
3. My newsfeed is far less arbitrary. At the very beginning it was actually worse. Without me feeding it any data, Facebook served me so much random crap. But after pursuing like abstinence and hiding things I didn’t like, I found an extremely healthy balance of content.
4. I find myself spending more time having private conversations with specific people than sharing my opinions with the world. Sometimes taking pictures of my son and sending to a few friends instead of to the masses (even though I still do this occasionally). I feel much more intimate when expressing gratitude on a personal level and visa versa.
5. I’m far less valuable to ad buys. This doesn’t matter very much to me, but for what it’s worth, my Facebook history is much more boring. Sure, Facebook can monitor my comments and shares but the sheer volume of likes I’m not giving them weighs heavily on their ad models.
6. I don’t have to worry about future scandal over something I liked. There’s so much drama latent in the social media world that removing likes from my life makes it that much easier to avoid a news story.

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