Last week, I came across an article by The Washington Post entitled, “The (One) Simple Thing Fueling Your Social Media Addiction.” Knowing full well the title was click-bait, I decided to read it anyway. It was about the way our lives have become quantified, especially on social media.
In 2012, Benjamin Grosser published a browser plug-in called Facebook Demetricator which removes all numbers from Facebook. That means no dates, no times, no numbers of likes, no friend counts, none. He wanted to remove the numbers on Facebook, thereby removing them as a way to judge our friendships and our lives.
At first, it sounded terrifying. How would I know when my friends posted their statuses? What about how popular an article or status was? And what about my notifications?
Grosser has received a lot of feedback about his plug-in, which he describes in a recent paper. Most of it has been positive, because people feel like the popularity contest aspect had been removed. Other people’s actions don’t influence whether you like something, the pressure to read certain things is reduced, and Facebook becomes a slightly less peer-influenced space.
Grosser says, “With Demetricator, the focus is no longer on how many ‘likes’ a user received, how much someone likes their status, or on how old a post is, but on who liked it and what they said.”
“Quantity is no longer foregrounded, leaving users to focus on the content that remains,” he says. So, like the article writer, I decided I would try the Facebook Demetricator. I installed the plug-in and found my Facebook feed to be a new world.
“People like this” comes up in my home feed, but I don’t know whether that’s one person, three people, or a thousand. All statuses and photos were posted recently, but I don’t know when that was. The number of posts since the last time I checked each group I’m in have disappeared and notifications only show up on my phone. Occassionally there’s a lag and for a moment I see the number of notifications I have waiting for me to check, or a status says “2 mins” since it was posted, but for the most part Facebook has lost most of its numbers.
And being honest, I love it! I don’t like being on Facebook and not knowing how many notifications I have, but I can check as often or as infrequently as I like. The little earth symbol for notifications turns white, but it’s far less intrusive than the number popups. I’ll confess, getting notifications on my phone is nice, but I find myself frustrated when I go on Facebook on my phone. I want to banish the numbers there, but I can’t.
Because of how Facebook works, I still can guess that an article has been liked thousands of times, or that a photo has been shared a few hundred times, but a number is no longer subconsciously making me feel like I should read something to be in the know. I am empowered to choose what I read. I do click on a few less stories, I like a few less photos, and I wonder what influence my activity is having on other people.
I have a rule: I like all relationship statuses. I always want other people to know that someone is happy that they are happy. However, I no longer know if I’m the fifth person to like their relationship status or the 50th. And as new relationship statuses have cropped up, I’ve wondered if I still feel as compelled to like the statuses without knowing if I’m simply jumping on the bandwagon or showing initial support. I don’t know that it’s made a difference, but I find myself questioning why I do certain things on social media.
There’s something exciting about seeing “people like this” on a photo. Occasionally I see a specific name, which I think means a photo has only been liked by one person, but “people like this” makes me feel like maybe I’m one of the first to see something. Sure, everything on social media, especially on Facebook has probably been a lot of other places first, but it feels more like I’m discovering something new and I like that.
Overall, demtricating my Facebook newsfeed has made me aware of how much I have let numbers affect what I click on, but now, I’m more reflective about whether or not I want to read something. I’m not ready to give up my notifications on my phone, but I sincerely with there was a Demetricator for the Facebook phone app. I dislike seeing the numbers now, because I’m more conscious of their influence over me.
I’ve gone as far as debating on deleting the app off my phone, to avoid the numbers. I’m not quite there yet. I’m still a sucker for being plugged in, but at least for me thinking about taking Facebook off my phone is a whole new level of conscious reflection and debate.
If you’re looking for a way to make Facebook more about quality of living than quantity of living, try out the Facebook Demtricator. You can download it here. Enjoy a few less numbers telling you how much you do or don’t measure up. Instead, you decide what to click on and see what a difference it makes.
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