If No More Likes, Then What?

Instagram is in the process of removing like counts from posts on the Instagram feed. How ever will people measure their popularity without seeing other's like counts? Personally, this is something I've been waiting for. I think for a while now likes, and social media in general, have controlled people's lives. I can't say I haven't been a part of that crowd at some point in my life, but as I grow older it's become less and less about the number of likes I get and more about sharing the content I want to share. However, now the question is if Instagram gets rid of likes, what will replace them to satisfy people's need for acceptance?

In an article by Buffer.com on this exact topic, they state that attention will be replacing likes. By attention they mean the amount of people your content has reached and the overall success rate of the content. This shift is occurring because of the change in the way we share our content. It's no longer about likes because people aren't creating posts anymore, they're creating stories. Yes, that's right, stories. Like the ones people can create on Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, etc. Users and brands can track how many people have seen these stories and just how many have completed the stories they're sharing. 

Personally, I don't share a lot of stories on Snapchat or Instagram, and do people even use Facebook anymore? Maybe this is a generational thing or just the fact it's a much more foreign concept I have yet to dive into, but I don't get the appeal of sharing stories all the time. To me, this only works for companies who are promoting their products. The individual use of stories doesn't make sense to me. Unless you are your brand. I just don't need people seeing me recording myself all the time or the things I'm doing. I will gladly stick to my occasional Instagram post and be happy. 

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