Facebook introduced its now instantly recognizable ‘Like’ button in 2009 – and, for what is really an incredibly simple feature, the button has attracted a lot of intelligent commentary. One notable intellectual to have passed unfavorable comment on what could be called the ‘Like’ phenomenon is the acclaimed British novelist Zadie Smith.
Smith, whose literary prizes include the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction, has commented: “For our self-conscious generation (and in this, I and Zuckerberg, and everyone raised on TV in the Eighties and Nineties, share a single soul), not being liked is as bad as it gets.” By “Zuckerberg”, she refers, of course, to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO and co-founder.
Making these comments in an article focusing on The Social Network, the 2010 biopic about the founding of Facebook, Smith further argues: “When a human being becomes a set of data on a website like Facebook, he or she is reduced. Everything shrinks. Individual character. Friendships. Language. Sensibility.” But are comments like these entirely fair about the influence of the ‘Like’ button? We look closer at this subject in the current issue of AppleMagazine.
