It has now been over a year since the last time I "liked" something on Facebook... or any other social media platform, for that matter. Here's what I've learned:
I'm somewhat less stressed about not liking other people's stuff. When I first stopped, I was a little concerned that the slight decrease in likes might (marginally) discourage people from posting things they're excited about. Now I think enough people know that I still like their stuff -I just don't "like" like it- that I'm no longer worried. Everyone knows that I still think their babies are cute and their new haircut is fabulous. Their memes I can take or leave, though, no matter how dank they may be.
Not liking stuff can be hard. The impetus to be lazy is great, especially on the internet. There have been many instances where I wanted to click the button and move on, but instead had to spend a minute or two thinking up an appropriate comment. Sometimes I couldn't think of anything appropriate and just gave up. Which is definitely a failing on my part. I shall endeavour to do better in the future.
Facebook doesn't know me anymore (if it ever really did). Whatever algorithm it uses to determine what to show me is just firing stuff at the wall to see what sticks at this point. Without likes, sads, wows and whatnot, it has to rely on the rare instances when I click on a link someone's posted, and those can be so wildly different that they don't really build a useful data profile. Unfortunately, I also don't get any of those pre-fab videos with the "you liked such and such thing x number of times" stats in them, but I think I'll live.
At this point, I don't think I'll ever "like" anything ever again. I didn't like
anything on Facebook until 2009, and it took another two years to get my total likes into double digits. The world will get by without my single-click input. I'm not going to proselytize, though. Some people like liking things, and that's perfectly fine. It's just not for me anymore.
