Facebook seems to have taken over the social world since it first launched in 2004. It is now the world’s largest online social network with over 1.35 billion monthly active users worldwide. An average of 4.5 billion likes are generated daily, according to Zephoria, an Internet marketing consulting firm.

From the number of “likes” you received on a photo to the amount of friends that appear on your profile, Facebook shows numbers everywhere. 

While not every number on Facebook is informative or noticeable, it certainly has a psychological impact on its users, according to Ben Grosser, University alumnus.

Grosser is an artist, composer and visiting professor at the University’s School of Art & Design who focuses on the cultural, social and political effects of software. 

Grosser describes himself as a longtime, heavy Facebook user; however, he slowly noticed a perplexing pattern in how he was engaging with the platform.

“I found that oftentimes I was focusing on how many ‘likes’ my status received rather than on who liked it, or on how much my photo was shared, rather than on who shared it,” Grosser said. 

The question that really puzzled Grosser was, “Why do I care about these numbers so much?” To find the answer, Grosser created the “Facebook Demetricator,” to try using Facebook without any numbers shown.

Facebook Demetricator is a browser add-on that removes all quantifying counts from the Facebook interface. Users are able to see who their friends are, but would have to count them by hand to know how many they have. They can see who comments on their status, but will only see their names instead of the aggregate value according to the information on the website.

Since releasing the extension two years ago, thousands of users have adapted the tool and sent Grosser feedback on how it affected the way they used social media. 

“One user wrote me that they no longer know whether they can ‘like’ something because they don’t give ‘likes’ to posts with more than 25 ‘likes’ already. But at the same time, the same user doesn’t want to be the first or second person to ‘like’ something,” Grosser said. “In other words, they are using the number of ‘likes’ to guide their own liking behavior.”  

Grosser said that most feedback he has received is from people who embrace the Demetricator. Without the numbers, users feel calmer, less competitive and less reactive.

“It probably has to do with social comparison,” said Michael Kraus, an assistant professor of psychology.

Kraus said that people often compare themselves to individuals automatically when seeing information that shows how well others are doing relative to themselves. Kraus explained that it is normal for people to feel envious when seeing others doing better than them on social media sites.

“If you were to remove the number, you might not have as much of a natural ability to compare,” Kraus said, explaining why the Facebook Demetricator may help create a more peaceful and positive user environment.

Grosser used the feedback and observations to write a paper examining the impact of metrics, published on Nov. 9 in a journal called Computational Culture. In the paper, Grosser listed the feedback from both the users who embraced the tool and those who did not, seeing it as going against the benefits of using Facebook in the first place.

“Now it doesn’t matter to me how many likes something has. My opinion is based on the quality of the post and its discussion,” a user said in a comment cited in Grosser’s paper. 

Another user cited in the paper said the Demetricator was “sucking the fun out of Facebook.”

Grosser explained that the culture of audit, a systematic and independent examination of data, begins within the public school system, where “standardized tests are used to evaluate teaching effectiveness, to measure student performance and ostensibly, to provide data useful for improving the system.” He added that this practice eventually leaks out into other areas of life.

“Facebook Demetricator requires regular maintenance in order to react to Facebook’s code and design changes,” Grosser said. “I will continue to maintain it, but have no plans to expand it.”

Edwin can be reached at [email protected].