When Instagram decided to care

As a mini scholar who pursued the topic of habits, one of the biggest takeaways was how technology companies are leveraging habits to increase user time on their products.

Companies hire psychologists and data scientists to meticulously observe human behavior and mine out a way to conveniently increase usage that turns into a habit.

When Whatsapp introduced status updates, I perceived it as an add-on value! But, if you analyze it closely, you will notice they did it as part of increasing the time users spent on their app.

The user interface is designed in a way that makes you swipe left the moment there is a break in your conversations. The status updates become your crutch as you impatiently wait for a conversation to resume.

Netflix offers a month’s long subscription as an attempt to grow a habit of you relying on it for entertainment! People binge-watch on content, and it slowly gets hardwired into a habit.

Punching in the CVV number no longer needs any motivation.

In the midst of all these crafty games companies play with us, I recently noticed an attempt to shake users out of their habit pattern instead of creating one.

Instagram decided to hide the # of likes.

Only you get to see the #dopamine hits.

The initial experience of this feature was nothing but a wake-up call. I immediately sympathized with people who thrived on the display of their celebrity status because of the number of likes they got. Not to forget, the ones that request to follow you, but end up unfollowing later once you follow back.

It made me think about the times I have looked at the number of medals I got for what I posted. Absolutely no denial about how I have caved into such tendencies.

Based on what Instagram has communicated, they want their users to focus on the content rather than obsessing over likes. It is a great way to help people realize their self-esteem shouldn’t be dictated by the # of likes they get.

It is a great way to break a toxic chain of people becoming victims of mental illnesses because of how they perceive their social media life.

There could be an ulterior motive that might get revealed in the long run for Instagram’s approach, but that’s probably my cynical mind speaking.

At the moment, I am completely digging this feature.

Thank you for reading!