The Like Button?

568 Views | 4 Replies | Last: 6 yr ago by Solo Tetherball Champ
kurt vonnegut
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AG
What are the pros and cons of the proverbial 'like' button?

Does it feed our narcissism - constantly encouraging us to check and refresh to see how many people approve of what we say? Does it serve as an encouragement to say what our audience will like rather than what we ourselves like?

In the case of Reddit or a forum like this, is their value to a voting system that can help people find the 'important' stuff without wading through the nonsense? Is this argument flawed because it ignores the bias of the voters who may be voting emotionally rather than intellectually?

The more I think about these types of systems, the more I think they are mostly destructive. I hop you all agree and will give this post a blue star.
AggieRain
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Aggrad08
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AG
It's mostly useless on here. Sometimes it saves the useless 'quote a post add nothing and blue diamond/star posts' that can fill up threads. Or the "this", "EOT", ect. posts where you can just star and say I agree with this statement.

Reddit is different as it's not conversational unless you look into the subcomments. It's a ranking system and the voting can bring crap down and good comments up. Usually its just funny or snarky comments at the top. But occasionally an article will be posted and the top comment will by why OP/article is BS.
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BQ78
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AG
The Like button is on Facebook; the blue star is a Texags original. Sorry no blue star for you, sir. But become my friend on Facebook and I promise you a like.
Solo Tetherball Champ
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Quote:

Does it feed our narcissism - constantly encouraging us to check and refresh to see how many people approve of what we say? Does it serve as an encouragement to say what our audience will like rather than what we ourselves like?

It is a feature designed to create a feedback loop. Trigger > Action > Reward > Investment. Facebook, etc are designed to be addicting. Sharing and receiving likes is just one way of doing encouraging the behavior the business wants - logging in and checking status, liking, etc. Helps them generate more Ad revenue.

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