Twitter is known for several things and one of them are its ways of letting people interact with content they see on the platform. One of the ways people interact with content they see on the platform is using the like button and it is being reported that might change soon.
According to the Telegraph, Twitter’s co-founder and CEO, Jack Dorsey admitted in a company event that he was not a fan of the heart shaped button and they will get rid of it soon.
The reason could be based on psychology. Psychologists have suggested that ‘likes’ may be causing social media addiction since it brings about a trend where people tweet or share something and if it doesn’t get enough likes, they end up deleting it.
This is kind of strange since Twitter decided to replace the much loved star button back in 2015 which was called the favourites button. We used the favourites button to ‘favourite’ tweets that we liked, but now that has been replaced by the bookmarks button, which I rarely use to be honest.
The ‘likes’ button was brought about for a purpose. Twitter wanted to target new users since if they came from other networks (like Instagram for example), they would find the star button confusing and this made sense in a way. Twitter also said that they wanted to make the experience ‘easier and more rewarding to use’ and it seems Dorsey doesn’t want that anymore.
We will have to wait and see whether Jack and his team will grow through this and what they will come up with in its place. Maybe the favourites button will come back? Who knows.
