What Happens When You Remove The Numbers From Social Media

What Happens When You Remove The Numbers From Social Media Photo Via: http://www.rockvalleycollege.edu In a recent Washington Post article, the anxieties of social media were revealed as arising from a numbers game in which people feel pressured to get a certain number of “likes” on Facebook or a certain number of followers on Twitter. One beautifully structured statement from this article says it all: “Virtually every Web site that governs our social interactions these days puts numbers front and center, like a bold-faced, numerical tally of your precise social worth.” It goes “quality over quantity,” doesn’t it? So why do we feel this incessant need to quantify our technologically driven social interactions? Benjamin Grosser answers this question in his article on this same topic: “I would argue that the answer lies at the relationship between our evolutionarily developed human needs and the pervasiveness of capitalism within western society. If, as Marx and Engels have said, capital has equated personal worth with exchange value, then its reverse should hold true.” In this case, the exchange value is equal to our personal worth. Photo Via: http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com This is a depressing concept, but really, it couldn’t be more spot-on. When we, as college students, log on to our Facebook accounts, we are seeking attention. We post pictures for others to see, and our humorous statuses require multiple “likes” so we can feel a confirmation of our ability to be clever or funny. We constantly seek out these numbers as a verification of our personal worth. However, it doesn’t stop there. While social media is largely based on social interactions, it is also a strong market for networking. According to a recent Forbes article, social media is a perfect marketing outlet for businesses. And what better way to judge how successful your company is than by looking at the number of “likes” or “followers” it has? Photo Via: http://www.intersectionconsulting.com Forbes says it’s tempting for companies to “use objective numbers like Facebook likes or Twitter followers to measure a campaign’s health or success.” The article continues, saying, “they’re verifiable, quantitative and logical, but the true significance of likes and followers to the success of a social marketing campaign is greatly overestimated.” This Forbes article is arguing, again, for the concept of quality over quantity: it doesn’t matter how many likes a business’ Facebook profile has; what matters is the quality of those that follow the business. The article states “roughly 80 percent of your revenue will come from 20 percent of your customers.” So you can snatch up as many Twitter followers as you want, but not all of them matter. So what happens when you take away the numbers game? Grosser decided it was time for a little social experiment, so he did what we all would expect: he created an app. The Facebook Demetricator does exactly as its name implies: it removes all numbers from the popular social media site, leaving no room for any quantities. According to its website, “Demetricator is free software that runs within the web browser, constantly watching Facebook when it’s loaded and removing the metrics wherever they occur.” So rather than logging in to Facebook to find three shares and seven likes, you will log on to find people like your post and people have shared it: all numbers completely removed. Photo Via: http://bengrosser.com So what’s the point? According to the website, “no longer is the focus on how many friends you have or on how much they like your status, but on who they are and what they said.” So again, quality wins out, and the numbers game is completely shut down. The site continues in saying: “Through changes like these [removal of numbers from Facebook], Demetricator invites Facebook’s users to try the system without the numbers, to see how their experience is changed by their absence. With this work I aim to disrupt the prescribed sociality these metrics produce, enabling a network society that isn’t dependent on quantification.” I think that’s a message we can all get behind. Grosser implores users to not only attempt using this software, but also to send him feedback as to how it has changed their social media experiences. Caitlin Dewey, author of the Washington Post article, tried out the Demetricator herself and wrote about her experiences: “In my timeline, things were a little more clear-cut: It’s awesome, frankly, to be able to judge other articles and ads and other people’s baby photos based solely on their merits, without the gentle halo of how many people have judged them meritorious already. I was immune to viral posts, to Facebook peer-pressure, to acutely targeted ads. Only I determined what I clicked, and oddly, in that vacuum, I clicked almost nothing.” In this way, social media users can take back their agency from the numbers that have for so long ruled their perspective. And rather than fall victim to the numbers game social media is continually playing, people can use it the way they intend to, without being ruled by the quantitative aspect. So remember: a number is just a number. It certainly doesn’t define you. Photo Via: http://growingsocialmedia.com You can read more about the app and receive installation instructions and downloads directly on the Demetricator website.