The issue I will be focusing on is likes and their correlation with self-satisfaction. I had a girlfriend once that was obsessed with her social media. Whenever she posted a picture, she would literally refresh the page every 30 seconds to see who and how many likes she got. It got to the point where our relationship was in jeopardy over the amount of time she put into her Instagram. She would become noticeably upset whenever she did not receive the number of likes she wanted. I was constantly informed about how one photo received x amount of likes in proportion to this photo. To contradict the mental health portion of, https://www.businessinsider.com/technology-negative-bad-effects-society-2019-8#social-media-and-screen-time-can-be-bad-for-mental-health-6 I believe that one social platform if used enough, is plenty sufficient to deteriorate one’s mental health. This was one of my most significant issues with her, and it legitimately hurt our relationship. I was thoroughly convinced that she cared more about the likes on her photos (some of them I was in) more than the relationship itself. If I were to redesign this app, I would remove likes altogether, and they are the primary driver for user retention on this platform. This quote from healio, “Moreover, social comparison and cyberbullying have been associated with depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation among adolescents.” suggests that social comparison (in this case is derived from likes) are clearly correlated to mental health, such as my ex-girlfriend’s. Social comparison was the primary issue in this situation because I would constantly hear about her likes compared to others’. The solutions to caseion were either eliminating likes or just removing the app entirely. I can’t recall a time where the app helped our relationship in any way. If anything, it caused me to become more upset because of her desire for likes and because I would have to take literally 100’s of pictures of her until she was satisfied. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to do things she had an interest in, but I took the same photo hundreds of different times for multiple hours at a time. Social media became one of the primary reasons why we broke up. I was tired of being an accessory.
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