Instagram's Testing an Option to Unhide Total Like Counts on Posts

Could Instagram be set to give users the option to display the total like counts on their posts once again? According to a new discovery by app researcher Alessandro Paluzzi, Instagram’s currently testing a new option which would enable users to hide or unhide like counts on their posts. That would enable users to display their total like counts for each post once again, which Instagram removed for most users back in 2019 as part of an initiative to support audience wellbeing. The theory, at the time, was that by removing like counts on posts, that would reduce competition over vanity metrics, which would in-turn lessen social comparison, and its associated negative impacts. That’s especially important for a visual-focused platform like Instagram, which is also particularly popular among impressionable young users.  Instagram hasn’t revealed any specific data on the effectiveness of hidden like counts experiment, but associated research studies have shown that the initiative could be beneficial, based on smaller-scale test scenarios. And Instagram’s stuck with it thus far, so you’d assume it must be showing some positive signs, based on its internal metrics. But maybe, the findings have also shown that some people still want to show their total like counts, and…
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