Each week, TODAY’s long-running Big Read series delves into trends and issues that matter. This week, we look at children and young adults’ unrelenting use of social media and their pursuit of “likes” and affirmation. This is a shortened version of the full feature, which can be found here.

SINGAPORE — The pursuit of “likes”, along with the affirmation culture that social media platforms such as TikTok has created, is in the spotlight following Instagram’s recent announcement that it would be expanding its test to hide like counts on posts.

In explaining the move — which began in Canada and will now be expanded to six other countries — Mr Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, said: “We don’t want Instagram to feel like a competition. We want people to worry a little bit less about how many ‘likes’ they’re getting on Instagram and spend a bit more time connecting with the people they care about.” 

But many have questioned if the Facebook-owned platform’s attempt to undo the culture where users, especially teenagers, become concern or even obsessed about what others think of them is a case of too little, too late.

While Singapore is not one of the countries picked for Instagram’s trial, many social media users here are also not immune from the “likes” chase, with even children as young as eight hooked on it.

Take the experience of Primary 5 pupil Aina Sofia Sirajuddin.  

She was once “addicted” to TikTok — a video-sharing app filled with 15-second lip-syncing videos, memes, and all things amusing to a Generation Z’er like her.

It got to a point where she was publishing up to 15 posts a day when she first got started using it in the middle of last year.

“I just couldn’t stop doing it,” she said. “I get more likes (than on Instagram), which made me feel like I was getting popular.”

Although she has learnt that it is meaningless to quantify her self-worth with the “likes” on the platform, the 11-year-old would be lying if she said that her 6,000 like count on TikTok and her more than 270 followers means nothing to her. 

More than half her class is on TikTok, she added. 

Sociologist Tan Ern Ser from the National University of Singapore (NUS) said that for children like Sofia, life online “can constitute a big part of their social environment”.

“I reckon some of these kids imagine themselves to be social media sensations,” he added. 

Indeed, some parents told TODAY that they knew of cases where children as young as four were starting to speak with a “YouTube slang”. 

One parent, who declined to be named, caught her own five-year-old daughter pretending to be a vlogger in front of the mirror by saying: “Click here to subscribe. Click here for more.” 

Dr Vincent Chua, an associate professor in sociology at NUS, said that social media’s “liking culture” latches on young people’s need for affirmation — especially from friends — popularity, as well as the need to be noticed.

Any young person would want to be "cool" and popular growing up, but taken to the extreme, such a desire breeds superficiality, insecurity, and most of all, a culture of unhealthy comparison, sociologists said.   

If left unaddressed, even if Instagram were to eventually hide its like count for all users around the world, people can still turn to other social media platforms to satisfy their need for affirmation.

‘A MESSED-UP PLACE’

Full-time model Lukas Koshy, 21, a “micro-influencer” on TikTok, acknowledged that such platforms present their own dangers.

“TikTok is a messed-up place,” he said, pointing out that there are “bullies” liking posts of people who are disabled or not good-looking, for example, as a way to mock them and help their posts go viral.

Youth counselling centres and clinics told TODAY that they are seeing more cases of youth struggling with self-esteem issues due to their exposure to social media. 

Psychologist Joel Yang from Mind What Matters clinic said that among the cases which he has seen was a 16-year-old student from an all-girls school. The girl checks Instagram every hour, takes up to an hour to craft a post, and will delete posts that do not reach a minimum number of “likes” after half a day.

“The teens I see are usually depressed, self-harming, or anxious. Social media exacerbates their condition. Already depressed, they start to compare themselves to impossible social media standards, and this further enhances their sense of hopelessness,” Dr Yang added. 

The youngest person who had consulted him was a nine-year-old who was grappling with social media comparison and cyber-bullying issues.

THE ROLE OF PARENTS

Should parents put a curb to social media use?

When it comes to exposing young children to social media, parents interviewed by TODAY appear to have contrasting approaches.

Mr Muhammad Asraf, a father of four, said that his oldest son, who is now 11 years old, had asked for access to Facebook and Instagram, but the 35-year-old technician wants his boy to wait until he completes primary school.

On the other hand, Ms Angie Chew, 55, an adjunct associate professor at NUS who is also a mindfulness trainer, had allowed her children, now 21 and 23, to go on social media when they were just eight years old.

“I’d rather teach them young — at an age when they’re willing to learn from parents. As they grow older, they don’t want to learn from parents. They want to learn from friends. The earlier you teach them, the more receptive they are.”

She pointed out that social media is a new fact of life through which many life lessons could be gleaned.

“You can’t say, ‘I’d keep them at home because they should not be socialising with anybody at this age.’ You cannot isolate them. If anything, social media is not going to go away. It has become part and parcel of our world today. So, teach them,” Ms Chew said.

If parents are “too strict” about their children’s use of social media, they could do things behind their backs, she added. Unsupervised, they are exposed to greater dangers, she reiterated.

Sofia’s mother sees it the same way. Madam Amisah Bahrom, 45, a clinical manager at Gleneagles Hospital, said that parents should allow their children to do as they wish on social media “as long as they know the limits”.

Sofia’s 25-year-old brother, Mr Muhd Shahfieudin Sirajuddin, said that through TikTok, he has seen his sister “mature”.

“I know she can defend herself (against online bullies). She knows what to reply.”

Mr Brian Poh, a senior clinical psychologist in the Department of Developmental Psychiatry at the Institute of Mental Health, reiterated that it is impossible to eradicate the use of social media among youth.

“(Parents) can prepare them for stressful situations by solving problems together and rehearsing how to handle specific situations like cyber-bullying.” he said.