For the Love of Selfies Facebook, why the ‘Dislike’ Button?

So, Facebook may soon roll out its ‘dislike’ button. But how equipped are we, psychologically, to handle criticism?

I have a friend who I won’t name, because she is like a lot of other people I know.

She posts an update on her Facebook page each time she travels/visits a restaurant/does something ‘cool’. She then waits for the love, dreading the cold wave of social isolation each second her phone refuses to beep. Her face breaks into a smile only – and only – when the number of ‘likes’ and ‘comments’ on the post begin to reflect the kind of social anxiety she is feeling.

My friend is validated. She has been ‘liked’ by social media.

The sad truth? My friend is hardly alone. The need for social media approval is constantly spiralling upwards and we are ill equipped to handle it. The vicious reality is that it feeds into a very primal urge to be ‘liked’ by people. Four-year-olds squeal if you haven’t noticed their newest pink dress, corporate bigwigs throw lavish parties to ‘celebrate’ their successes with friends (who may have congratulated him, already).

The internet has just made it trickier. Why wait to meet and share when you can just as well post an update and tag your friends and their long-lost grannies in it?

So, the ‘Dislike’ Button is Finally Coming to Facebook

So, what’s our context? Facebook has just pulled its latest rabbit out of a hat – lo and behold, the ‘dislike’ button. CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg gave in to user demands when he announced that the social media giant would soon launch a button that was the exact opposite of the ‘like’ button.

The tricky part? Zuckerberg’s own rather ambiguous statement. The 31-year-old genius pronounced that he “didn’t want” people to use the button to “down vote” other people’s posts and pictures. Instead, he’d prefer people used it for sad or tragic posts where a ‘like’ button seems insensitive to use.

But how much will his ‘want’ really feature when the button is thrown loose to an approval-hungry, competitive Facebooking world?

Take a look at these documented cases of social media obsession, for example:

Do You Remember These Cases of Selfie Obsession?

A selfie-obsessed Romanian teen burst into flames when she touched a live wire on the roof of a train. What was she doing on such a precarious spot? Trying to take the “ultimate selfie”, of course.

In March last year, a British teenage boy made headlines when he attempted to kill himself after being unable to capture the “perfect selfie”. The boy survived, luckily, and went on to become a much-needed poster child and advocate against the craze of selfie obsession.

And there’s little precedence to the tragic case of the bride-to-be who was on her way to her own bachelorette party, when her friend who was driving the car lost control while posing for a selfie. The bride-to-be left behind a devastated fiancee and a five-year-old son.

It’s not a ‘Dislike’ Button Really, but an ‘Empathy’ Button

So, how is Facebook’s ‘Dislike’ button going to impact us, really? For starters, let’s get one thing straight – it probably won’t even be called a ‘Dislike’ button (Zuckerberg insists he wants it to be used to express ‘empathy’). We were thinking ‘You are uninvited to my Diwali party’, ‘I find your politics reprehensible’ and ‘ONE MORE DUCK SELFIE and I will kill you’, etc. All possible options.

It could make Facebook a sadder place, because more grey content will now vie for place with pictures of cats in buckets and how Matt Damon’s life mantra changed you as a person. It could also make Facebook a dangerous place for people easily affected by external approval.

We suppose it all depends on how Zuckerberg markets his button of ‘empathy’. We trust the man, he’s pulled out trickier rabbits out of his hat before.