I don't believe it's to fight envy. Don't give them that much credit. I can't speak for Facebook as I'm not familiar with their interface, but I can for Instagr

I don't believe it's to fight envy. Don't give them that much credit. I can't speak for Facebook as I'm not familiar with their interface, but I can for Instagram. Prolific users tend to hit a wall that paralyses them. As their audience grows, they go from comfortably posting whatever takes their fancy to fretting over metrics and all the gaming that goes on. Is this photo good enough? Is it spectacular? Will it struggle to get stats and embarrass me? I've seen people go from regular users to just seizing up and posting nothing for weeks on end. Longer they pause, the bigger the pressure to resume. One friend of mine was basically full-time on Instagram as an influencer and then just stopped for months and months. I think if they're hiding likes, it's almost entirely because it's hurting their overall engagement, not because they care about people.