Instagram removing likes has its benefits, but does it truly serve its intended purpose?

Adam Mosseri, CEO of Instagram, decided to remove likes to improve users’ mental health by eliminating the need for others’ approval, yet many people still use Instagram to determine popularity through comments, followers and number of likes.

“Instagram deleting their numbers of likes is not good for teenagers because it leads to more obsessive behaviors trying to see how many more comments you may have than one person,” Hailey McLaughlin (11) said.

The quality of content will likely start to deteriorate as people stop caring about how many likes they get on certain posts.

“It takes away from the professional aspect of social media. The content became more casual,” Ben Sharabi (10) said.

Some users believe that the update could have been handled differently.

“It should be up to the user to show or not show likes. The user should be able to choose how they want to run their social media,” Sharabi said.

However it was executed, the update does not fully address what it was intended to since the consuming need to please will always exist and the interest in the app will decrease.

“Instagram shouldn’t be a popularity contest, but liking posts is a habit almost everyone does. Taking it away won’t feel the same; it’ll just die out eventually because it’s not interesting,” Evelyn Jordan (10) said.