We are in the midst of a global pandemic that has brought the world economy to a halt and cost us hundreds of thousands of lives. A crisis that is not ending anytime soon just because we’re bored with it. And yet, it sure seems like our suffering is over, at least if my social media accounts are any indication of society at large. For all weekend long, I saw posts where my friends, family, and people I follow, were going out and about, without a care in the world, like it was business as usual. Like we were celebrating the end of the pandemic not still firmly in its deadly grasp.
It was unbelievable. Everywhere I looked people were hanging out with friends, attending weddings, going on vacations, chilling at beaches, and eating out at restaurants. There weren’t any indications whatsoever that the pandemic was still going on. I was appalled by what I was seeing or rather what I wasn’t seeing namely masks. But what recourse did I have to address their selfish behavior? I didn’t want to interfere in their lives and potentially ruin my relationships with them by coming down too hard on them for ignoring social distancing guidelines. But I did want them to know how I felt or at least realize that somebody was not happy with their behavior. Perhaps then they would come to their senses and understand that what they were doing was wrong. That’s why we need “anonymous liking”. A way to let people know how we feel without them knowing how we feel. Something that is now technologically possible to pull off.
That’s because it used to be that you could only “like” something on Facebook. But now you can like it, love it, care about it, laugh at it, be wowed by it (my personal favorite), dislike it, be made sad by it, or show your anger towards it. A wide range of emotions that all come in handy from time to time. Especially now that we can use the dislike, sad, and anger emoticons to publicly shame our friends into making better decisions.
Which is something that we absolutely should be doing. We have a moral imperative to put people on blast and shape social behavior. The only way we get out of this mess is if we all work together. Wearing a mask isn’t just to protect yourself, it’s also to protect those around you. None of us is safe, until all of us is safe. So while it may be slightly inappropriate to call people out for having fun and just living their lives what choice do we have? We either address this detrimental behavior now or suffer the consequences in the long run. But instead of being damned if we do, damned if we don’t, anonymous liking helps us get our point across without suffering any personal damage to our interpersonal relationships or general reputations. People get the wake-up calls that they desperately need without any need for awkward face to face confrontations. It’s a win-win situation.
But anonymous liking doesn’t have to just be limited to putting people on blast during the pandemic. You could also use it to like slightly inappropriate content, like a dirty joke, or picture of a coworker in a bikini, without anybody knowing how perverted you really are. You also won’t get in trouble if you accidentally “deep like” an old picture while cyber-stalking your crush.
Now, I’m not going to go so far as to say that we should also have anonymous commenting or anonymous identities that would prevent us from getting canceled. By and large I believe that online identity is very important. It establishes trust, holds people accountable, and prevents cyber-bullying. But anonymous liking? There’s no reason why we shouldn’t allow that.
There’s already been a push in Silicon Valley to lessen the importance of likes throughout social media platforms. That’s why Instagram no longer publicly displays the total number of likes that your post gets. But the anonymity stops there as users can still see who liked their posts behind the scenes. What I’m proposing is that we do away with that component as well. You can see how many types of each interaction you got but never who was behind it. This has the added benefit of preventing people from getting mad at certain loved ones for not liking their posts. So long as one person likes the post then effectively everyone has.
I realize that fixing social media isn’t our highest priority right now. But maybe it should be. Millions of people use these sites and are generally influenced in one way or another by the content on there whether that be from the advertisements they see, or the memes, news stories, articles, and posts that their friends and family are sharing. Instead of just letting these sites run wild, creating filter bubbles and negative feedback loops that reinforce bad behavior, maybe we should start building in tools that help us correct user behavior, designing the very solutions that we need directly into the product itself. Shaping how we use social media before it shapes us.
Is Anonymous Liking the Greatest Idea Ever?
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