On Instagram and Facebook, You Can Now Hide the Likes Counter Under Posts

Users of Instagram and Facebook can now hide the number of likes under their posts. The new option is available to hide all the likes in the feed and only in their posts, The Verge reports.

The company has been testing the feature for several years “to see if it could reduce the pressure on people on Instagram.” Their experiments showed that people perceived the feature differently: For some, the change was helpful, reducing their anxiety, while others perceived the lack of likes with irritation.

“People use the likes counter to see what’s trending or popular right now, so we’re giving you a choice,” Facebook noted.

Users can now turn on the option to hide all likes for all posts in their Instagram and Facebook news feeds. A separate option will allow users to hide the likes under their own posts for others, or even choose individual posts where they won’t be displayed.

Instagram recently experimented with disabling likes for some users. The reaction was mixed: some were frightened by the change, others were happy about it.