Why Instagram Hiding “Likes” Is A Necessary But Almost Too Late Gesture

Social media platforms have held a steady grip on our consciousness for over a decade, which is more than enough time for users to decide the consequences of uninterrupted engagement.

Facebook was the first foray into the unknown that lasted for about six years before the charm was replaced with a bitterness that raised the antlers of suspicion as it pertains to the authenticity of being social with “friends” that eventually blend into the landscape of blurriness.

It was incredibly empowering to possess the ability of effortlessly reviving connections that had gathered dust from the limitations that made it impossible to keep in touch with contacts situated abroad.

Once those challenges were replaced with the purposed clicks that led to the vibrant scrapbooks that detailed the missing years up to the present, that was when the magic was supposed to begin. But there was the gradual realization of how fighting for attention based on the weaponry of glaring popularity can reduce users to slaves of a systemic virus that turns “friends” into an army of strangers.

The over-crowded field of attention seekers became a suffocating game that left me feeling out of my element and disheartened by the discovery of how those connections weren’t as real as they…