The History and Psychology Of The Like Button | The Lightbulb Moment

**Sanitized Transcript:**

[Music] The year was 2007. A coalition of engineers pulled an all-nighter to create a prototype of a new product for their website. As the morning light peered in, they knew they had landed on something big—a tool with the potential to revolutionize their business. They called their creation the “Awesome Button.” After months of work, they were excited to launch the button on their site. All they needed was approval from their CEO, but the review didn’t go as planned. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, didn’t deem the button a worthy addition to the site. He worried that allowing users to “like” something would conflict with more significant modes of interaction like sharing and commenting. Just like that, the Awesome Button was dead in the water.

However, even though Zuckerberg didn’t agree with it at the time, the Awesome Button—later dubbed the “Like Button”—would soon become so integral to the company that it is nearly synonymous with Facebook. It would change the way we communicate and forever alter our perception of the world. This is the “Lightbulb Moment,” a Curiosity Stream original series that uncovers the surprising impact of less celebrated inventions and the moments of inspiration that made them possible.

Contrary to popular belief, likes weren’t invented by Facebook. According to Fortune, the first documented like occurred on November 17, 2005, on the video-sharing site Vimeo. However, a Vimeo VP is quoted saying that they copied the idea from the news aggregator website Digg. On Digg, users could either “dig” or “bury” certain posts, allowing users to rank how they appeared on the website by popularity. Before Digg, there was FilePile, and before that, there was HotOrNot. Likes were gaining traction in various forums all over the internet in the early 2000s. While other sites may have done it first, Facebook’s Like Button had the biggest impact on the world because they had more daily active users than nearly any other site at the time. With that scale, every decision Facebook made had to be scrutinized.

Before there was the Like Button, the Facebook wall was how we participated. When News Feed launched, every post made on someone’s wall would also show up publicly on News Feed, putting interactions on display for all to see. Even though users were divided on how much they wanted their posts blasted across the homepage of Facebook, one thing was clear: it increased engagement and kept people addicted to the platform.

That’s not to say that News Feed was perfect. One issue that seemed to be running rampant across the site was an overwhelming number of redundant comments that all seemed to say some version of “I like this” or “I agree with this.” Leah Pearlman joined Facebook as a product engineer soon after the controversial launch of News Feed in 2006. Pearlman noticed this issue and proposed a potential solution: give users a way of showing their support for a post with one click. It would both decrease clutter and make it easy for people to share their support.

She reached out to a coworker to design a proof of concept for the button, but upon reviewing it, Zuckerberg was concerned it would cannibalize the share feature and lessen meaningful interactions in the comment section. After all, if it was so easy to just click something and show support, why would people spend time commenting? The Like Button went back to the development stage. Over the next few months, team members began to view it as a cursed project because it kept failing reviews.

The button didn’t gain any real traction until December 2008. Itamar Rosen was enlisted to gather hard data on the Like Button. After two months of testing, he concluded that the Like Button didn’t take away from the number of comments and meaningful interactions a post received. Contrary to Zuckerberg’s belief, it actually increased the number of meaningful interactions. Likes were used to rank posts higher in the News Feed, promoting already performing posts to more people, which, of course, increased the number of likes that post received. With this irrefutable evidence, Zuckerberg finally gave the go-ahead, and likes launched on Facebook on February 9, 2009.

Though nobody knew it yet, the implementation of the Like Button that day would change both the online and offline worlds in irreversible ways. When Facebook first came out with the Like Button, people responded decently well. It gave them a way to engage with what they were scrolling through without having to stop and leave a comment. It offered a sense of community or belonging to someone who might have shared something. However, it also had consequences that Facebook never saw coming.

One immediate and unintended consequence of the button was that it gave everyone on the platform a quantifiable metric with which to compare themselves. We often find ourselves bound by the psychology of it as much as by capitalism. It tells us to quantify ourselves through market logic. You put yourself out there and get an exact number of how valued you are by your community, creating a murky space. It feels good to put yourself out there, but it can lead to feelings of inadequacy if nobody responds or likes it. In that way, it becomes a competition.

Facebook transitioned from being a place where people could connect to a more gamified experience. We invested the coins of our time and only felt good about ourselves when we saw our points go up in the form of likes and notifications. Everybody, whether they admit it or not, strives to be an influencer. When we use hashtags, we’re all part of the same ecosystem. If I post a story about my dog and get two likes, while a celebrity posts about their dog and gets a million, there’s that vulnerable part of your brain that wonders, “What’s wrong with my dog?”

We often fail to recognize the social and cultural forces that influence who gets liked and when. This gamification of the Like Button spread to other social media sites like Instagram, which allowed users to double-tap to show their support. Initially, when we get likes, it feels satisfying—a little dopamine hit that we chase. However, there’s a law of diminishing returns; that initial satisfaction diminishes, but our brains keep chasing that rush.

These rewards feel exciting in the moment but have psychological repercussions. Cognitive neurologist Ofir Terrell compared it to financial competition, where seeing your balance alongside others can lead to dissatisfaction. When we derive a sense of worth based on how we are doing relative to others, we place our happiness in a variable beyond our control. As young people grow up with social media, they may see this system as normal or natural, making it difficult to question.

The repercussions of the Like Button extend beyond mental health. It commodified our interests, entering us into a marketplace without explicitly telling us. This self-quantification translates to real dollars; the more likes you get, the more you can participate in the economy of advertising. We are conditioned to participate in a system we don’t fully understand.

In the early days of the Like Button, digitally liking was something users took pride in. It allowed users to curate their profiles to reflect the image they wanted to present. However, this engagement often lacks attention to who is on the other side. We know that giving our private information for public good to private corporations is a nebulous space, but we push that aside to feel connected without understanding how it works.

Facebook engineers developed the Like Button to be lightweight and mobile enough to be embedded on almost any site. Soon, it seemed like it was everywhere. Even when it wasn’t, its trackers would follow you to other sites. This is how Facebook became one of the most powerful advertising engines on the web. Companies didn’t have to send out surveys or track purchases; we were giving all that information for free. Facebook knew where we lived, who we were friends with, and what we liked. For advertisers, this was a treasure trove.

Most people don’t log into their social media accounts to think about the larger ramifications of what they like. Some may get spooked when they have a conversation about something they want to buy, only to see it advertised to them later. However, they aren’t spooked enough to stop using the technology, as broad-scale research has shown.

This began an era described as “surveillance capitalism,” where Facebook gains information that can be converted into money. In exchange, users get a curated feed, but even that isn’t a spotless exchange. Facebook’s automatic curation algorithm created a new problem: confirmation bias. When users like political content, the algorithm shows them more of that type, often leading to a more radical version of the content and creating a filter bubble that limits exposure to opposing viewpoints.

This function led to significant issues, including Facebook’s role in potentially altering the course of the 2016 US election. Facebook has come under fire for its role in that election, with officials questioning how data was used to influence outcomes. Facebook allowed divisive online ads, and its algorithm pushed content that users would like, potentially giving them a distorted view of reality without opposing viewpoints—a recipe for disaster.

We often want to separate online life from offline life, but they are interconnected. The attention economy and the way we understand ourselves through likes have become integral to our cultural identity. While Facebook isn’t the only company facing these issues—YouTube has promoted divisive conspiracy theory videos, and Twitter has acknowledged its filter bubble—social media sites differ from search engines like Google in terms of choice. There are alternative search engines that don’t track users, but social media sites lack viable alternatives.

The power of these sites comes from the fact that everyone is on them. Being essentially trapped on these platforms allows companies to accrue vast amounts of information about us. We often fail to recognize that we cultivate bias through our likes, participating in a system that exploits our engagement.

Over time, the Like Button has evolved from a fun way to show support to a means of siphoning attention and commodifying our online lives. The original creators of the Like Button have expressed disdain for how it has changed. In 2019, Facebook and Instagram announced plans to start hiding likes, aiming to reduce competition and encourage more authentic connections. However, some internal research suggested that hiding likes might not hurt the Like Button’s power; instead, it could increase it by making users feel less self-conscious about posting.

The most challenging aspect of social media is that the responsibility falls on us. While companies should bear responsibility for privacy concerns, the tools they provide are just that—tools. The Like Button is not inherently good or bad; it depends on how it is used. In some communities, it has enabled connection and feedback, while in others, it has diminished feelings of social value.

So, has it made people happier? It’s hard to say, but it has undoubtedly changed how people perceive themselves, both positively and negatively. The Like Button has disrupted the internet and the world forever, and there’s no way to return to simpler times before it. The new normal is understanding that every button we press creates a chain reaction in the algorithm. The best way to adapt to this complex internet may be to engage more responsibly with these tools. They can be scary and nebulous, but if we are deliberate, they offer a way to recognize the voices of others and share in a sense of community, which can be powerful.

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