Most people’s lives revolve around social media. From Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to any other platform, users can share updates, pictures, videos, and whatnot with friends, family and followers. The amount of likes and comments a post gets can affect the original poster in a very deep way. Users often feel disappointed or even embarrassed because of low engagement. As a result, you often end up deleting content that doesn’t get enough attention.
People remove posts with only a few likes because of different psychological and social factors. In this article, we’ll look at the main reasons why this happens on social networks.
Seeking Validation
Humans have an innate need for social approval and acceptance. Social media has tapped right into these core desires. The number of likes, comments, and shares a post garners signifies reaching and resonating with an audience. When engagement is low, the implicit message is that the content failed to interest others.
Seeing single-digit counts signals rejection instead of validation. Rather than sit with uncomfortable emotions, deleting posts enables users to avoid confronting the lack of peer endorsement. In some cases, individuals even choose to buy IG likes to boost their posts and project a stronger sense of approval, bypassing the sting of low engagement. Removing content, whether through edits or artificial means, becomes an act of self-preservation against the blows of disapproval.
Measuring Self-Worth
Unfortunately, many have started assessing personal value based on quantitative social media metrics. Self-esteem rests precariously upon the whims of an audience tapping heart icons and typing brief comments. When not enough interaction comes in, it punctures holes in shaky confidence.
Numbers are more important than real personal connections when living life through screens. Likes are tallied, and approval is dependent on tallying likes — even from friends and family. Rather than maturely reflecting on why engagement was lower, users remove posts quickly in order to avoid painful self-judgment.
Fear of Being Judged
Social anxiety permeates the real world and online interactions. Worrying about being harshly judged already prevents some from sharing posts publicly in the first place. Mustering up the courage to put yourself out there only to be ignored is a nightmare scenario.
Having content overlooked or regarded as uninteresting by peers exacerbates self-consciousness. Not getting social signals expected in return seems to confirm internal fears of being unworthy. Proactively deleting posts then serves to hide perceived failure to measure up to standards.
Preserving Curated Appearances
In personal branding time, therefore, social media profiles are craftily crafted forgeries of identity. Users selectively put on faces, and they are only polished versions of themselves and their lives. The facades and fantasies are trying to be sold to audiences, and falling short of expectations threatens them.
When posts flop, cracks form in meticulously curated appearances. Having only a few people endorse attempted highlight reels is seen as more potentially damaging than just removing the content altogether. Protecting how users are perceived takes priority over honesty and authenticity.
Losing the Popularity Contest
Popularity has been quantified by counting likes, comments, shares, and followers. Doing well on these vanity metrics earns social capital and envy. On the other hand, not gaining enough engagement can feel like losing a high school popularity contest played out through screens.
Watching other posts and profiles attracts more attention, while personal content flounders are a tough pill to swallow. For those whose self-worth relies on besting peers, seeing lower engagement numbers is utterly demoralizing. Deleting posts then helps hide the defeat of coming up short in the platform popularity dash.
Avoiding Embarrassment
Decisions to remove posts without interaction quickly also arise from fear of embarrassment. If friends and connections asked why so few people liked or commented on the content. Having your posts actively ignored while others get traction is a few things more shameful.
It has a huge impact on self-confidence and encourages people to keep sharing posts publicly. Deleting content saves users from having to explain themselves or admit unpopularity. This also prevents learning from failing — something that can be good or bad depending on future needs.
Escaping Harsh Feedback Loops
The mechanics of social media platforms create harsh feedback loops based on collective approval. Content not getting engagement quickly enough is less likely to be amplified by algorithms curating what appears in feeds. This further reduces the possibility of more eyes, shares, and engagement.
Seeing posts stagnate or completely fail activates cognitive dissonance for users expecting a warmer reception. Rather than patiently giving the content a chance to find its intended audience, it feels better to remove posts altogether when positive feedback loops fail to activate.
Preference for Ephemeral Sharing
Some are now preferring posts to be ephemeral and temporary. Stories that disappear on Snapchat and Instagram are freeing users from worrying about metrics after first views. Sharing uncensored moments without overthinking downstream impacts is possible by setting 24-hour limits.
Perhaps deleting posts indicates some growing preference for ephemeral information with a lesser permanence. Some may as well not have posts haunt or define them indefinitely if they are going to be scrutinized anyway for likes and comments. People also value authenticity more than ever before, and they are not interested in chasing engagement.
Combating Algorithmic Bias
The sophisticated algorithms under the hood of platforms like Facebook and Instagram hold incredible power over the distribution of content. However, unconsciously biased AI can lead to a preference for posts that grab attention instantly, which tends to reward emotional outrage and negativity. More nuanced posts can unfairly get buried.
Quickly removing posts with low engagement could be an effort to combat assumptions and bias programmed into algorithms. If platforms privilege posts that explode in popularity immediately, users may look to circumvent this by taking matters into their own hands. However, this reactive approach fails to solve root issues.
Preserving Integrity of Feeds
Personal profiles and social feeds represent users’ tastes, interests, and values. Posts that are inconsistent in quality can clutter feeds, which can feel distracting and inauthentic. Self-curation then takes the form of removing content that does not gain enough community endorsement through likes or comments.
Exercising control over the coherence of profile feeds provides reassurance. For public figures and content creators hoping to monetize their following, only spotlighting their most popular content allows for tighter brand management across platforms. However, this also contributes to the demise of authentic interpersonal connections online.
Obsession with Quantifying Attention
The root of frequently deleting posts is a widespread obsession with quantifying attention and worth through public metrics. People have an innate need to feel valued by others. In the absence of meaningful real-life connections, users seek validation through superficial double taps and emoji reactions from acquaintances.
But no number of likes can replace the depth of human relationships and intimacy. As long as users stay trapped in chasing engagement statistics, the emptiness of disconnected digital interaction will persist. Building self-confidence from non-quantifiable sources presents the only viable path to overcoming shallow validation loops.
Conclusion: Looking Ahead
Social media will only grow more central in people’s lives in our increasingly digitized society. Understanding what motivates different user behaviors is crucial for informing ethical platform design aimed at user well-being. The above reasons illustrate how engrained social validation-seeking shapes conduct which can be personally and socially destructive.
Users will continue to quantify self-worth with metrics, and so will the impulse to delete content that doesn’t draw engagement. But there’s some promise in a cultural shift that prizes quality over quantity of connections. Maybe someday, society will learn the lessons that are necessary to find our fulfillment without screens.