Facebook Says Relax: No Dislike Button Is Coming

Mark Zuckerberg didn’t quite break the internet, but he may have broken some people’s hearts Tuesday. During a Q&A session at Facebook’s headquarters, Zuck said, “I think people have asked about the dislike button for many years. Today is a special day because today is the day I can say we’re working on it and shipping it….What [users] really want is the ability to express empathy,” Zuckerberg added. “Not every moment is a good moment.”

Previously, he has been adamant about not offering a “dislike” button alongside the “like” button, for fear of the negativity it could (and most likely would) invite. Is this truly something being given to the users because they (we) have asked for it? Or, is this new button going to be offered so Facebook can find out more information about it’s users?

It should come to no surprise to any user that Facebook is based on a series of algorithms that curate your News Feed. Each time you go to Facebook, the algorithm shows you top or “most recent” posts from your friends and brands you have liked, in order of what you’ve told the site you want to see most – what you “like” most. Posts that receive the most likes are shown higher up in your feed, because that is what the algorithm has determined will attract the most user engagement. What throws this off, is all the posts that express emotions you don’t want to necessarily be seen as “liking.” Think of the time your friend posted about something sad – you didn’t know what to comment, but you wanted that person to know you felt for them – wouldn’t some sort of empathy button have helped?  Perhaps you didn’t even see that friends post, because the algorithm had already buried stories of that sort, from lack of likes.

This new button that for now, we seem to be calling the “dislike” button, would help you balance out those posts that would be odd to “like.” I imagine that what Zuckerberg and his team is working on isn’t a “bully” button, to hate on people, but will be a way to still interact with posts you don’t want to hide, but also don’t want to “like.” These sort of posts will still be viewable and come up high in your News Feed, and you won’t have friends coming to you weeks later inquiring why you didn’t mention anything about their father passing away.

Who does this help the most? Us? Facebook? This early on, I’m still a bit divided in my own thoughts. I think this will give us a chance to see more of what is important to us and our friends, at the same time giving Facebook the chance to keep us on their site longer, and find out more about our feelings, which leads to more ads and more dollars in Zuck and Facebook’s shareholders pockets.

What will this new button look like? A thumbs down would provide the yin to the yang of the thumbs up “like” button, but that doesn’t seem to be what Facebook wants to portray. Perhaps what would be more helpful would be a button that signals to the person that put up the post “I saw this,” or “I hear you.” In my eyes, that would be more of an empathy button, whereas a thumbs down button (and we do not yet know that is what this new button will be) gives off more of a judgmental feel.

However, will hitting “dislike” really show empathy? Or is it the lazy man’s response? Will it be more of a show, like “I want people to see that I don’t like this. But I can’t take the time to write out a true comment or express my feelings, so phew! I’ll just hit this button.” Liking something doesn’t actually equal engagement. Sorry, but it’s true. Actually engaging, sharing thoughts and feelings – that is what creates engagement, not the push of a button. Even the most perfectly placed emoji seems to create more engagement and has the ability to show more empathy than a “dislike” button push.

Honestly, I think it’s too early to start hating on this new button just yet. I don’t think Zuck would take the chance of alienating the 1 billion users by giving us all something that could offend and hurt people, or turn the site into a negative Reddit rabbit hole. We just don’t know what exactly is being created right now, and it seems too judgmental to fully express opinions on it without having all the information.

You Don't Need to Unplug To Find Happiness

It was around 1995 that I first logged onto AOL and within the first two years, began finding people to chat with in online groups. I found people that lived in Chicago, or that played Scrabble, and occasionally flirted with some flirts that most likely were the original Catfish. I would spend hours talking to these stranger-friends. I hadn’t been all that popular in high school but online, I had a fresh start to meet people that weren’t already in unbreakable cliques.

I went to college, had a busy life filled with theatre, work, studying, new friends and family and didn’t spend much time online. There was so much to learn and so many new people to meet and new experiences to be had and I tried to take advantage of as much as I could.

Then came Facebook, and I was back to spending much more time online. In 2008 I joined Twitter and while I didn’t delve in nearly as much as I do currently, I was spending a considerably more time online.

My favorite times are when I go to a city and leave feeling like I know everyone there. Chicago, although it’s my hometown, has always felt like that to me – welcoming and friendly and much smaller than it appears. With all the people I’ve been able to meet in over 20 years online, when I travel, I am able to recapture that feeling as I meet my online friends offline and the world continues to shrink.

Do I spend so much time online that I neglect my friends and family and offline relationships? I have never had someone come to me for an Internet Intervention. I can put my phone down and focus on people I am with (for the most part) and not feel an overwhelming sense of #FOMO. At the same time, do I ever go a full day without at least one Twitter chat? Actually, I do. Most Fridays I don’t attend any, but I certainly see everyone in my groups with multiple chats on other days. I don’t lose sight of the people that are important to me, my family, my dog…but I also know that I have extremely close friends on social media that are just as dear to me, if not even more so, than some people I spend time with offline. So what is the difference really? Offline, when you want to see friends, you meet them at a restaurant or a coffee shop. Online, you meet them in a chat or a DM or a group. Either way, we are still going where we need to be, to keep up the relationships that are important to us.

On a professional level, I can’t imagine going a day without checking my email. I’m not sure that anyone that runs their own company or works at an executive level in any company truly ever unplugs or “goes off the grid.” To me, that is irresponsible. I believe that the stress of wondering what you might be missing negates any freedom or imagined peace of mind you might be attempting to regain my turning off all electronics for an extended period of time. How many times have you gone on a vacation and come back to more emails than you can possibly answer your first week back? How serene does that make you feel? Exactly.

If I’m a customer and having problems with something or need to reach a company, I’m going to be pretty put off when I receive an out of office reply, more so if it doesn’t offer me an alternate person to reach in the first person’s absence. In an age where transparency and immediacy has become the norm, why would you make your company unavailable to it’s consumers? The very people that make up the sole reason you still have a company?

I’m not suggesting you stay tethered to your laptop and phone 24/7. The beauty of today’s increasing world of remote workers is that your time is taken into consideration. I understand that you, like me, may be working remotely and therefore your time really is your own. Do I still expect replies to my correspondence in a timely manner? Absolutely, and I will offer that to you as well. But I may take an extra hour during the day to walk the dog AND have a leisurely lunch, and might only check my email twice during both of those times.

I tend to believe that if you can only find moments of serenity when you are entirely removed from any and all thoughts of your job, perhaps you are not in the right position. Personally, I can find many other things besides email and social media to distract me, if I’m not truly in the moment, no matter where I am. Similarly, I am also able to find peace when I need to. And that doesn’t mean I take off for my own Walden Pond, ignoring everything around me. Peace for me comes in learning to live in the real world, which is made up as much by people online and off. It means accepting my life as it is and me for who I am, and not seeking a technological black hole to hide in, away from all of you. And the irony? Where to people come first, to tell everyone else about their time “unplugged?” Ah yes. Twitter. Facebook. Text messages. How many times have you seen someone unplug, just to come and immediately ask, “Who missed me?” You know you’re coming back. We know you’re coming back. Is the break one big ego trip?

We live in a digital society. New technology pops up every day. Would it not be better to find the best way to live in the world we um, live in, than to pretend we’re somewhere else? Or not try to escape our current lives and learn to find the balance?