Instagram will take quite the toll on the mental health of its users, especially the young ones. The struggle to keep up with the highlight reels of your friends and internet celebrities is exhausting, after all. However Instagram and its owner, Facebook, are operating to ameliorate some of this stress by hiding likes in Instagram. Adam Mosseri, hinted at last month.
Following the same test in Canada back in May, Instagram is testing the approach with users in Australia. Under the new system, you’ll be able to see how many likes your photos get, however your followers won’t be able to. Similarly, you can’t see how many likes other peoples’ photos get.
“We want Instagram to be an area where individuals feel comfy expressing
themselves,” said Mia
Garlick, Facebook Australia and New Zealand’s head of policy. “We hope
this test will remove the pressure of how many likes a post will receive, therefore you’ll be able to concentrate
on sharing the things you like.”
We’re presently running a test that hides the
whole number of
likes and video views for some individuals in the following countries.
On Thursday,
Instagram said in a tweet that it’s extending the test to Brazil, Canada, Ireland,
Italy, Japan and New Zealand.
A 2017 UK study found that out of 5 major social networks, Instagram was the most harmful to young
people’s mental health.
Snapchat followed, with Facebook third, Twitter fourth and YouTube fifth. Additionally to toying with concealing likes, Instagram is additionally working to get rid of bullying from the platform.
Instagram declared in April during Facebook’s F8 developer
conference it was experimenting
with new options to
combat bullying. Earlier in July Instagram discharged an AI-powered feature that lets
users know if
they’re close to post
an offensive comment. When a
user types out
“You are so ugly
and stupid,” for instance,
a user will get a
notification that states “Are you positive you want to
post this?”