How important is it for someone to “like” your social media posts? Ohr Chadash posed that question and some others regarding social media to several St. Louis area Jewish teens and here’s what we found:

Danielle Platke

12th grade, Parkway North High School, Congregation Shaare Emeth

1. How do you feel about likes on social media?

I honestly try not to pay too much attention to likes. While they’re nice to get, I appreciate comments much more because it requires more thought and means more in my opinion.

2. Does getting more likes make you feel better/worse/indifferent?

Getting more likes used to be a big measure of my own self-worth and would even determine whether or not I kept the picture up, but I’ve learned to become pretty indifferent to the amount of likes I receive.

3. Would you find apps more or less attractive if it didn’t have a “like” feature?

Probably more attractive, just because I think “likes” take away a level of authenticity of the content. I want to see what people actually want to share, not just what they think will receive the most likes.

4. Why do you think likes are/aren’t important on social media?

I think “likes” aren’t all that important because they don’t require much thought or effort at all. If we’re only posting what we think will receive a lot of likes, is it even worth posting in the first place?

 Ben Stettin

12th grade, John Burroughs, Congregation Shaare Emeth

1. How do you feel about likes on social media?

I would say I have a more negative view of social media than positive. However, I don’t really care altogether. Likes are a metric used to define popularity, but it can have an immense effect on developing teens mental health, especially when they don’t receive as many likes as they wanted.

2. Does getting more likes make you feel better/worse/indifferent?

I’m indifferent to getting more likes. I’m not the type of person that cares if other people know what I’m doing.

3. When you like pictures on social media, do you like everyone’s pictures, or just some people?

When I use social media, I only like the pictures that I genuinely like because that’s what the feature was designed for.

4. Why do you think likes are/aren’t important on social media?

I don’t think likes are an important part of social media. I think they’ve shifted away from what they were intended to be. I think originally, people liked only the photos they genuinely enjoyed. I have plenty of classmates that like every photo along their scroll bar. They like the photo without even looking at what it says.

Evan Singer

12th Grade, Ladue Horton Watkins, Congregation Shaare Emeth

1.How do you feel about likes on social media?

To me they are not something that I care about very much but I can see how others might.

2. Does getting more likes make you feel better/worse/indifferent?

How many likes I get doesn’t matter to me.

3. When you like pictures on social media, do you like everyone’s pictures, or just some people?

Typically I like everyone’s because if I didn’t want to like their pictures I wouldn’t be following them.

4. Would you find apps more or less attractive if it didn’t have a “like” feature?

A little bit more attractive because the people on the app would likely be more genuine and less focused on making themselves feel better while not caring about others.