Social media has become an integral part of the lives of a vast amount of people. With social media comes all familiar aspects of face to face communication: from greeting, to wishing a happy birthday to your peers, to sympathy, to bullying. Mark Zuckerberg has announced they wish to expand on Facebook’s current “liking” system. “What they really want is the ability to express empathy. Not every moment is a good moment,” Zuckerberg explains.
While much of the media has sensationalized Zuckerberg’s words to be truly considering a dislike button, it is extremely unlikely this will happen; a sympathize button has also been discussed. The concept of expanding on the generally positive liking system is massively controversial. With an ever growing awareness in bullying in general, the possibility others can do anything other than ‘like’ something has raised several red flags. While it would make sense to dislike the death of a friend’s relative, the same button would be readily available to click upon viewing a peer’s recently added photo. Consider a dislike button and imagine posting a photo of yourself that you really like, only to have people start disliking it instead- not really a self confidence boost.
Taking a look at some statistics from the aptly named bullyingstatistics.org:
- About half of young people have experienced some form of cyber bullying, and 10 to 20 percent experience it regularly
- Mean, hurtful comments and spreading rumors are the most common type of cyber bullying
- Cyber bullying victims are more likely to have low self esteem and to consider suicide
Awareness is prevention. There has been a large shift in focus in school districts towards anti-bullying. When 84% of teens 12-17 are on social media, 94% of which use facebook, it is would counter productive for such a prominent platform to add a tool that can be so easily misused. Any sort of alternative to the like button needs to be implemented very carefully, or not at all.
But your confidence is not all that the dislike button is taking! Recently reports claim that you can get your dislike button right now. The only prerequisite for installation is your credit card information. Not only that, but some sites even want you to share their link with your other friends so you can start disliking their pictures of food and complaints of the weather!
Again, it is extremely unlikely Facebook will let you truly dislike something, or someone. Ironically, a quick look in the Facebook search bar will show communities of hundreds of thousands strong liking dislike buttons or unofficial petitions for them. Facebook knows a true dislike button is nothing but negative. With the future bringing new buttons, they need to get it perfect the first time, as you only have one chance to make a first impression (especially given the already blown out of proportion controversy).