To Be or NOT to be... "LIKED"

Social media has become such an enormous part of our world today. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Linked In, Vine and all of the other various tools all give us the option to appreciate or “LIKE” someones content.

The “like” button is used for various reasons. It helps us to notify others about how a certain post or product connects with our lives, and it also helps us to keep track of what we would like to see more of.

Over the past few days, I was asked to try and keep track of how often I click the “like” button on social media and to keep tabs on what types of things I’m taking an interest in. I found that it was nearly impossible within the first 10 minutes of the experiment. By the time I started attempting to keep track, I found that I had “liked” or “favorited” about 15 things within the first hour alone. Simply tallying the number of times I liked a post was absolutely impossible.

Within the past four days I would say that I probably “liked” about 1,000 things (maybe more).

However, I was very aware of the types of thin

gs I was “liking” or “favoring”. I found myself gravitating mostly toward beauty and fashion related posts, videos, and media that revolved around such topics. I also found myself “liking” many of my friends pictures as well as photography that I appreciated.

When I was of elementary age, paying someone a complement had to be done pretty much face to face or very personally. The simple words of “I like your outfit” could make someone feel confident. However, nowadays, people tend to get insecure if their photo or status doesn’t have enough people “liking” or appreciating what they have posted. It then often leads them to take it down. A song by the Chain Smokers, “#Selfie“, perfectly depicts this concept quoting, “I only got 10 likes in the last five minutes… do you think I should take it down? Let me take another selfie”.

Being aware of the content that we “like” is extremely important. It helps us to identify who we are to people looking at us through their screens. I’ve learned through this small experiment that it is gravitating to be “liked” or to “like” something else. We are the generation of the “like”.