Not only does the like button lack originality, but overuse of the “like” button also threatens our engagement with information online and in real life. When we compose a comment, we are compelled to actually think about why we feel a need to respond to an image or message. Liking a post “allows us to bypass this thought process.” It is all the sentiment without the thought, the online equivalent of the conversational “that’s nice” that we sometimes halfheartedly throw out when we are not really listening.
I find the “like button” a dumbing down of society. Perhaps we will be responding in grunts, groans, and growls, or hyena howls soon. Complex thinking requires us to think. Thinking requires us to perhaps state, ” I do not understand what you are talking about.” Pushing the “like” button is another form of societal conditioning by corporations to force us to behave in a certain way. Baaah go the sheep. We say we are not prejudice, but prejudice IS part of our conditioning, and now we are discussing the prejudice of pushing the like button.
We are losing our sensitivity and ability to form complex thoughts and ideas, write them down, discuss, and perhaps come out of a discussion reframing a perspective. NO! I do not like the “like” button. It is the dumbing down of the masses. I tried it out for awhile, but I am glad you brought this point up, Julien. I consider it the lazy way out. Most of the time, I do not think people are even reading what others write…they S C A N and press the like button…onward to more consumption…F A S T E R.
There is a flow to life. We will never be able to keep up with the exponential rate of data doubling every week on the internet. My song of existence requires me to be real – not a clone. I hope others will join in this “discussion.” We are here not to prove who or what is right or wrong. We are here to inquire.
No, the like button does not offer me the ability to “chew, swallow, and digest.” What is the point of collecting “likes?” Like “what?” What was “liked?”
We are being forced into thinking that we “like” the like button. Krishnamurti stated “The ultimate violence is war – the killing of ideas…”
We are caught in the web of society. Pushing the like button keeps us in our little cave, not stating what we feel or do not feel, afraid to be NOT LIKED! The like button is destructive. Conforming is imitation. Again, a quote from Krishnamurti: The quality of seriousness is to pursue to the very end a thought, an idea, a feeling; to go to the very end of it whatever may happen to you. Seriousness consists of seeing things clearly, in finding out, not accepting.”
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/5/25/button-more-facebook-likes/