Instagram Allows Users to ‘Hide’ Likes

01 Jun 2021 UK SIC

Instagram has launched a new feature that will give users the option to ‘hide’ likes on other people’s posts as well as their own. This has been launched to try and give users more freedom around how they manage their profiles.

‘Likes’ can be seen as measures for how well a social media post is performing. For some, likes are not important or not something they give much thought to, but for others they can cause concern and create worries of not meeting expectations. Seeing the number of likes on other people’s posts can also create feelings of jealousy or competitiveness which can lead to unhealthy patterns of ‘chasing’ likes. This behaviour can sometimes lead to users putting out material that is potentially harmful or contradictive of their true selves online as they think this will gain them more likes. This new feature of hiding likes can be used to allow users to take some focus away from likes.

Setting up the new feature

To enable this feature, users will need to access their Settings, go into Privacy, enter the Posts section and select the Hide Like Count switch. Using this will prevent you from seeing the number of likes on other people’s accounts as well as the total number of views of videos.

If you want to hide the likes on your own posts, you’ll need to do this manually for each post you put out. Go into the post you want to hide, select Advanced Settings and turn on Hide like and view counts on this post. You can change this at any time and also set up this feature before you post.

Maintaining a balance

If you feel that your Instagram likes are causing any concerns or worries, then this feature may help with setting some boundaries. Turning off the like feature may help you appreciate the content of Instagram posts more as opposed to the response.

If you are a parent or carer concerned about children or young people using social media platforms such as Instagram, you can always download the free checklists from our partners at SWGfL to incorporate other parental controls to help keep profiles safe.