Instagram hides ‘likes’: Instagram is hiding the ‘likes’ count on the app in several countries to remove social pressure on users. This update allows only the user to see the number of likes a post has received. The followers of the user won’t be able to see it. The photo and video-sharing social networking app has started this test on a trial-basis in Canada, Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, Ireland, Italy and Japan.
At present, followers can see the number of people who have liked an Instagram post, but with this new feature only the user’s “name and others” will be visible below the post.
The ‘likes count’ is somewhat a measure of popularity on Instagram.
Instagram announced this test in April during Facebook’s F8 developer conference in order to combat online bullying and mental pressure.
Many studies claim that social media apps such as Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube can be detrimental to mental health. In fact, Facebook has been trying to address this problem for a while now. Facebook had earlier announced that they made a few changes including showing fewer viral videos that had reduced time spent on Facebook by roughly 50 million hours every day. CEO Mark Zuckerberg later said that that’s a reduction of 5 per cent of total time spent on Facebook.