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Yes absolutely. People are not able to draw accurate conclusions from the demographic of viewers vs voters to draw meaningful conclusions from like counts. It b
by blackflame7000 6y ago
Yes absolutely. People are not able to draw accurate conclusions from the demographic of viewers vs voters to draw meaningful conclusions from like counts. It breeds thoughtless support / activism. “Why learn about a topic of concern when I could just like Sarah’s post and everyone will know that I’m down for the cause.”
- kens 6y agoCoincidentally I was reading about this yesterday in the journal Science. They discuss concerns about "clicktivism", symbolic actions such as liking social media content. In short, you don't need to worry that people are substituting low-effort liking for real political action. Research shows that online political activities are positively correlated with offline political engagement. People who are strongly interested in politics tend to express that interest both online and offline. They also state that even low-cost digital activities can sum to substantial efforts. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6508/1197 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6508/1197
- Bud 6y agoWell, except that like counts alone don't make it so that "everyone will know" you support a given comment or cause. This site, for instance, used to have like counts, but you could not see who liked (or disliked) a given post or comment. You could only see the number. I personally liked it that way, although I understand why the site admins decided to do away with the visible # of likes for comments.
- blackflame7000 6y agoWell you can’t tell the number of likes in the positive direction but based on the shade of grey you can tell how negative it is haha